While Speaker Bass may be upbeat about a tentative Big 5 budget deal today, sanity still says that a long-term solution — over the next few years if not part of this budget — must include addressing the inherent inefficiencies in a bureaucracy gone mad. You know, what the Governor once called blowing up boxes.
As an example, FR friend Janelle Riella contacts us with this story…
My family is in the trucking business. When we receive renewal notices from the DMV, they are usually sent back to the DMV in bundles with one check for all of the vehicles. Just today, my mother received a note from the DMV that is was TOO EARLY to be paying the registration (the due date is September 2009), so they will be sending her a check back in the mail. The DMV sent her the renewal notice in the first place!! Now, they are going to reimburse her (which on average is $25 plus to get a check cut in the private sector) and she will have to turn around and pay the bill in August? They can’t just send her the new tags?
What is wrong with this state????
OK, for those thinking that such madness is an exception to the rule, a simple singular error in thousands of transactions, something to be easily corrected, uhhh…well, that tells me you haven’t done business with — or worked for — the State of California. Corrected, sure, as long as you don’t mind the personal headache, not to mention the guaranteed additional bureaucratic costs to administer what seems like a simple error.
Yet, I do have to wonder whether the reimbursement for the "early" payment will arrive in the form of an IOU. Just think, the Riella family can earn 3.75 percent while they wait one month to resubmit payment.
I have just one question. What is wrong with this state?