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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 6, 1995                   TAG: 9504130011
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GOV. ALLEN

GOV. GEORGE Allen's goal of reducing the size of the state work force is worthy. Coast to coast during the '80s, public-sector employment grew disproportionately to growth in the general population, and Virginia has been no exception.

Moreover, encouraging voluntary early retirements and other departures via monetary incentives, as the administration so far is doing, is preferable for several reasons to involuntary layoffs. Not least among those reasons is the contribution a humane approach makes to the long-range good of the organization: It helps retain the confidence on the part of remaining employees, upon whom success depends, that they will be treated fairly.

Success depends, too, on wise management in the deployment of resources - and no more so than when the mission is to do more with less. The public demand, after all, is not merely for a shrunken government but also for a more effective one.

To date, some 7,000 state employees - or 6 percent of the work force - have accepted offers to take early retirement or cash buyouts. The administration, hoping to eliminate 16,000 jobs by the time Allen leaves office in January 1998, seems to view this larger-than-expected number as an unalloyed blessing.

But is it? The administration's pleasure in this apparently unprecedented mass exodus from state government may not be shared, at least not for long, by residents who depend on state services - as, to some extent, virtually all of us do. ``Like it or not, we turn to government for a lot of things," says Del. Kenneth Plum, a Northern Virginia Democrat, "and if there's not someone there to help us out at the [motor vehicles] office or the health department, you're going to hear the other side of this.''

A central question, in other words, is how well the administration recognizes that a work force diminished too fast and too indiscriminately can cause problems as surely as a work force grown too large.

Even more troubling are suggestions that state workers are jumping at a chance to leave simply because they're tired of working in an atmosphere of fear, anxiety and discouragement.

The governor's tendency to characterize the state work force as bloated, lazy and inefficient may resonate with those who think government can do no right. But if the result of bureaucrat bashing is the forfeiture of state employees' pride in their work and enthusiasm for making continuous improvements in the provision of government services, then all Virginia is the loser.

by CNB