Oregon’s Next Governor
Business is not government but the next governor can use lessons from the boardroom.
After 8 years in elective office and two runs for Oregon State Treasurer I have learned a few lessons about what it takes to be successful in elected office. I have written about it and spoken about it. Which leads to the next question: What is needed for ALL Oregonians in our next governor? This is not political or partisan. It is about delivering the services Oregonians want. It is about thinking over the long term and be willing to experiment, not obstruct, and then if it does not work, end the experiment.
There are three needs for our next governor – a vision for the future, an understanding of where we have been and the management/leadership skills to bring the vision about. Words matter, but words and deeds not working together is not going to get us there. For too long the elected leadership in Salem has focused on the words without following up with the linking to deeds. Is it because it is easier to speechify, bloviate if you will, then to do the hard follow up work that is not as exciting as making a pronouncement of some new program or initiative. Don’t talk in platitudes like investing in the 21’st century workforce or serving the under-served. Be serious, be specific and then provide the sound bites.
Leadership and management are interchangeable words.
Think of where we have been over the last several years and Oregon’s inexplicable inability to deliver programs and projects in an effective, timely and cost-effective way. Here is a partial list.
Columbia River Crossing – bridge still needs replacing.
Department of Motor Vehicles computer upgrade.
State wide emergency communications system – did not happen.
Employment Division upgrade – 10 years in the making even though the money was in place.
Employment division getting the extended unemployment checks out.
Renter assistance debacle in delivering.
Landlord assistance debacle in delivering.
Implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Signing up for the covid vaccine through the website.
Oregon Department of Administrative Services sending private vaccination records of 40,000 state employees to two newspapers.
New family leave program – the inability to deliver the promised new benefits in a timely and promised manner
Family leave is only the latest in a long list of demoralizing failures by state government and yet we keep electing people who were either present at the creation, did nothing while things were not happening or who have no experience in oversight and accountability. The employees are good people, they need management, leadership and accountability to match.
The next governor needs to ask three basic questions for any proposal – 1) Does the proposal spend funds wisely reflecting a track record of good spending? 2) Is the proposed spending oriented towards a better future. 3) Are we paying for it in a reasonable way.
Understand that a basic principle of public finance is you pay for recuring expenditures with recurring revenues and you borrow for long term investments.
Understand the Governor owns the problems and opportunities but the rest of the executive branch and the legislature are not let off the hook, free of responsibility. The entire state government has let the people of Oregon down. Change has to begin with the next governor.
Honesty not fiction about what is or is not happening. Not blame shuffling. Rules and regulations increase and the level of accountability as one goes up the government ladder decreases. Look at Oregon over the last couple of decades. Program after program where electeds pay no penalty. They pay no penalty, shuffle department heads and go forward even though we are not doing as well as we can with existing programs. We need a governor who says no, enough is enough. We are going to make what we have in place work well before we try adding something new.
And now with a gusher of money flowing from the federal government Oregon voters are being asked to believe the people who could not handle the previous budget are capable of handling an even bigger budget.
Business is not government but the next governor can use lessons from the boardroom.
Be more transparent – This is not only about telling people things. It is about being clear where you are going, what your priorities are, why they are important (inform and persuade) and then holding fast to them. If everything is important, then nothing is important. Be clear, deliver and measure the results - do not surprise the voters – it leaves them frustrated.
Increase accountability– see the above list. It starts and circles and ends with the governor.
Governance takes two – In a 30 (State Senate) and 60 (State House) , sixteen and thirty-one votes gets a “win.” But getting to a majority is the first step, not the final step. The goal should be significant majorities from both parties. Therefore, once you know you have a simple majority go to work on getting to significant majorities from both parties. Know how much you are willing to “give up” to get to significant majorities. Compromise is not a dirty word. A good result is where everyone gets something, but no one gets everything.
Delivering on budgets – The money was in place for employment division upgrade 10 years and the upgrade did not happen.
Execution matters – It is rare for a corporate or government strategy to rise or fall on how good it sounds when it launched. See the above list. Need to spend more time delivering on past promises instead of making more. Or waving hands to distract. Politicians, like business leaders earn trust by delivering on what they are supposed to do. Investors bring about change in the corporate world. The voters must in the political world.
It is easier, much easier, to visualize the future than to get there. We do not need a new vision for Oregon. Let us begin the hard work of execution and implementation of the vision. Look to the future, but that is not a reason to ignore the failures of the past.
Talking about “transformation,” etc. and all the other abstract ideas that consume imagination and time is what you get when elected leaders don’t know – or don’t care – about doing their jobs.
The next governor needs to do the job with a team of agency heads who understand the vision of the governor, understand their missions and who are held accountable for the execution of those missions and delivering back to the tax payers what they heavily invest in this state with their hard-earned tax dollars.
Oregon’s next governor needs to do their job. Do that, and we will all prosper.
Jeff Gudman served on the Lake Oswego City Council from 2011 to 2018. He ran as the Republican candidate for Treasurer in 2016 and 2020.
"Sunrise Columbia River, Oregon" by Bonnie Moreland (free images) is marked with CC PDM 1.0.
An excellent article, Jeff and your points are spot on. And accountability is paramount. The next Governor needs to hold her or his team and agency heads accountable and the citizens of Oregon need to hold the Governor accountable. This requires more than short-term memory on the part of the public and harkening back to campaign promises and the platform the next Governor sets forth at the commencement of the term and measuring the results on an ongoing basis.