Governor Dannel P. Malloy today released a 70-page report compiled by the Office of Policy and Management in collaboration with state agency commissioners highlighting some of the changes that have been made in state government since the administration took office last year.
The report, titled “Changing How Connecticut State Government Does Business,” includes a number of different initiatives that have begun to make state government leaner, cheaper and more efficient.
“When I took office, our state government was bloated, broke, broken, and inefficient, and not serving particularly well the taxpayers who pay for it,” said Governor Malloy. “Today’s report is an opportunity to talk about some of the important changes we’re making in state government. “
Initiatives from the report include:
- The issuance time for vehicle titles at the Department of Motor Vehicles had reached crisis level – 145 days. Changes in business processes, including the ability of offering the form online in a downloadable format, have decreased processing time down to 22 days.
- The Department of Administrative Services Leasing Unit has been working to eliminate or renegotiate property leases wherever possible. In FY12, DAS restructured a number of agreements, reducing the state’s leasing costs and saving $121,672.11 in the second half of Fiscal Year 2011, and $913,540.30 in Fiscal Year 2012 for Connecticut taxpayers.
- The Department of Revenue Services reorganized, going from five to four bureaus, resulting in one less top level manager, elimination of two stand-alone business units, redeployment to accommodate overall staffing reductions and re-introduction of cross-agency project management. Also, five regional offices reduced to four with some savings reallocated to add general taxpayer services at each location. Reduced operating costs, clearer taxpayer access and staff accountability, and service improvements and efficiencies due to LEAN project management have lead to $8.25 million in operational savings.
- An initiative by the Department of Children & Families to reduce the use of congregate care, implement a statewide Strengthening Families engagement model, and increase family and community-based programming for children and families allowed the agency to improve services while also reducing its operating budget by $38 million.
- The Child Day Care and Youth Camp Licensing Programs administered by the Department of Public Health were maintained in multiple stand-alone, non-integrated databases. In July 2011 and April 2012, the Department of Public Health’s Child Day Care Licensing Program and Youth Camp Licensing Program transitioned to a new enterprise-wide licensing system. Field workers can now view the database remotely and download results of inspections directly into the system. As a result of time-savings, DPH has completed 1,900 more inspections per year, reducing overtime and the need for new hiring.
“This report isn’t an exhaustive list of every change happening in Connecticut. In fact, we’re sure there are important changes happening in agencies that we haven’t captured in this report, which is why we hope to do more of these in the future,” concluded Governor Malloy. “The information in this report represents a snapshot of the things that are often overlooked, but can matter a great deal."
In all, the report is comprised of 82 individual initiatives from 26 different agencies.
