Westly says more auditors would find budget savings

Sac Bee ^ | 4/15/06 | Steve Hecht

[NormsRevenge]

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly said Friday he'll unleash an expanded team of auditors to "wring the inefficiency" out of state government and help close a $5 billion budget shortfall if he is elected California's top executive. In a meeting with The Bee's Capitol Bureau, Westly, the state controller and the new leading Democratic gubernatorial contender, came across as a candidate for accountant-in-chief as he sketched out financial charts and figures on an easel board.

The former eBay executive proposed increasing the number of state auditors by nearly one-fifth - from 210 to 250 - and said he would seek additional fiscal and performance reviews of state agencies. He estimated the effort could raise as much as $200 million a year.

Westly's presentation seemed to echo Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's earlier call to "blow up the boxes" of bureaucratic inefficiency that led to the Republican governor's 2004 "California Performance Review." But Westly charged that Schwarzenegger's effort "died under its own weight," leaving the state with 20,000 pages of recommendations but little real change in how California does business.

Westly, a Stanford MBA and former business school lecturer who reaped nearly $250 million from the sale of eBay stock during the go-go days of the technology boom, said his business acumen and experience are what the state needs to right its fiscal ship.

Saying he would bring greater financial expertise to the job than Schwarzenegger, the movie star governor who once invested in a popular restaurant chain, Westly joked: "I'll take my record at eBay vs. his at Planet Hollywood any day."

[NormsRevenge]

sounds like he's borrowin' a sheet from the Gub's hymnal

I recall there were 250 some state auditors, not 210 as he says, what the heck are they doing year-round?

would even 500 be able to do even more,, it is leadership and fiscal savvy that counts, an ability sadly lacking all around in this state gubamint,, unfortunately.

politicians , ya got ta love 'em, just make sure ya got your barf sack handy.

[martin_fierro]

Best I can tell, Westly's chief Claim to Fame is having one old photo taken with Jimmuh Carter.

Because he flogs it in every campaign that he loses.

[NormsRevenge]

that and making a couple hundred million off of eBay stock

[newzjunkey]

Some things have happened. I remember some warehouses were cleared out by auction, for example. There has been room for becoming more efficient but some of that requires spending money on IT infrastructure for example and takes time before the ROI becomes not worthy. In other cases there just won't ever be efficiency because the legislature or the unions won't stand for it. And, finally, there's all that mandated funding.

Everyone remember Al Gore's "reinventing gov't" and just how much did he save? Oh wait, all those cuts came in defense not the bloated bureaucracy.

[calcowgirl]

...takes time before the ROI becomes not worthy...

Freudian slip? I think it describes Government perfectly!