Comments about ‘Utah could save $10 million annually with optimization, Gov. Herbert's commission says’

Do it guv. Save us $10 million!

They already cut pensions last year plus they didn't increase salaries so they stuck it to the teachers, fire, police twice.

In order to have on line textbooks you would have to have computers for every kid. We aren't even close to that right now. You can't say read them at home because some kids don't have computers or internet. They would claim "fee waivers" and then what? Are we going to buy them a computer?

I do like the online remediation classes for university students. There is no reason we should be subsidizing a repeat education that they didn't take seriously the first time.

"Combating fraud, waste, and abuse" would seem to be the idea with the most merit, imo.

Some of these recomendations of combining agency's make sound sense as there are too many agency's doing the same thing and duplicating costs.

The eliminating of text books is a bad idea though, it's much easier to read a book than a computer screen. Besides, computers cost more than books and more costly to maintain and keep programed.

Economic growth is in the right place, at the bottom of the list. Economic growth depends on too many variables to make it a state wide demand on all employees.

The only thing left off the list and most important is accountability. Auditing alone will not create accountability of those entrusted with public funds. Accountability should include jail and fines for repeat offenders for violating citizens trust. A repeat offender means once can be forgiven, twice is criminal.

If city and state employees don't pay in to their retirements, then they don't get a retirement is one I have to agree with. Also put a cap on how much retirement any state employee can receive regardless of pay and position they held. This would affect only the upper pay grade employees and managers.

Combine Human Services and Admin Services? Get real.

Every time government starts talking about reform or re-organization, I grab for my tax-paying wallet. From a career with the Federal government, every time they had a reorganization, sevices were cut, production slowed way down, as employees started to find self protection routes and looked for ways for self survival, and failed to step out. It takes a government agency about 3-4 years to recover from reorganization and by then someones wants to reorganize again. A task force is OK, but if you want real success it has to start from the bottom up.

@ Sodiedog

Thanks for reading. But that's actually human resources (HR), not Human Services. Have a nice weekend.

If this state would have a lotto, Keep the money in state and out of Idaho.. Think of all the money that us Utahns would put to our state and not theres!!!!

True Rawhide Kid the state consolidated the technical services a couple of years ago and it has become a self fueling wildfire. Costs are up, services cut, the talented are leaving, all in the name of consolidation. HR consolidated a couple of years ago and suprise suprise now they want to move them back.

My2Cents,

What most people fail to realize is that the pension program is a contribution that is made each paycheck as part of the benefits provided to each state employee. All you have to do is look at each paystub to see this. This is budgeted money, not just a promise after you have worked 25+ years. So, in a sense, each employee is contributing to their own pension, by receiving a lower take-home salary (average 16.5% lower than private)and having it go towards a future benefit called a pension. It appears that this commission is recommending increasing salaries to match industry standard and letting the employees contribute to their own, therefore reducing the potential risk of managing a pension program and limiting the risk of a bad investment market. I am just tired of the "you are getting something for nothing" mentality.

Dear Governor Herbert,
It's pretty funny that Herbert's committee is making a big deal, and holding a big meeting to talk about saving $10 million when this just happened within the last six months. So, here's a little help with two money-saving tips that will save more than all of their proposed little cuts:

1. Fire UTA (Utah Transit Authority) CEO John Inglish, whose salary and benefits approach $350,000. The Los Angeles Transit Chief makes only $310,000. Inglish's salary was just raised this spring.

2. The governor's commission ought to be embarrassed that they missed this one: Why in the world was a losing contractor on the I-15 bid paid $13,000,000 ($13 million dollars)? The governor supposedly "learned" about this one during a press conference when a KSL reporter brought it up. He has yet to do anything about it, but Rep. Julie Fisher from Kaysville did. Where is the accountability? I can't believe that the head of the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has that much power to disburse funds at a whim.