
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 31, 1995                   TAG: 9501310115
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OUTBUZZIN' BUZZ

STATE SEN. Malfourd ``Bo'' Trumbo of Fincastle never made a secret of his admiration for the gutsy, maverick style of his predecessor, Dudley ``Buzz'' Emick, also of Fincastle. It may be no great surprise, then, that Trumbo is carrying on the Emick tradition of challenging governors of his own party when he thinks they're wrong.

In the case of Democrat Emick, that meant getting in the hair of Democratic governors. For Republican Trumbo, it means getting on GOP Gov. George Allen's case.

Trumbo has introduced a budget amendment to slash funding for Allen's Cabinet staff. That staff has been expanding, even as Allen has cut state employment in various agencies and talked of reducing the state work force by a total of 16,000 jobs.

Under the Trumbo amendment, the current Cabinet staff of 80-plus would be whacked by half, to the number on hand in 1988 when Democrat Gerald Baliles was governor.

Allen has justified the buildup of staff in his Cabinet secretaries' offices as necessary for coordinating and implementing his extensive agenda. Democratic lawmakers counter that Allen is creating an elite corps of political spinmasters that bloats the state budget he says should be cut.

Democrats, busy stirring up trouble for the governor on numerous other budget and policy matters, no doubt welcome Republican Trumbo's willingness to lead the charge on this particular issue. Emick must surely be smiling to himself. Recent Democratic governors - Charles Robb, Doug Wilder and Baliles, all of whom Emick never hesitated to cross, may want to send Allen a sympathy card.

More, though, is at stake than partisan back-and-forth, and Trumbo is right to have spotted it. In the overall budget context, the amount of money involved in the growth of the secretariats may be trivial, but not the symbolism: Padding at the top while asking lower-level workers to do more with less tends to get noticed by the latter. The implication that the road to better government is via a more top-heavy management structure does not bode well at a time when the private sector is finding the opposite to be true.

Meanwhile, has anyone tested the Fincastle water to see whether it has something that causes bipartisan chutzpah in legislators who drink it regularly?

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GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995

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