(HOST) Now that all the electioneering and facile candidate promises are history, Commentator and political observer, Bill Schubart, observes that for our new Governor-elect , there will be very few easy answers.
(SCHUBART) All durable solutions are incremental, involve compromise and take time to implement. They are the result of listening and open discussion.
Our new governor will need to be a communicator and educator. We Vermonters have become too disconnected from our government, its challenges and goals that our taxes fund. He will need to use the Web and his office to bring more understanding, transparency and measurement to the work of his new administration.
It will be possible to reduce some indirect costs of education like energy, healthcare, and administration while preserving quality. But it will require both innovation and compromise. There are benefits of scale that can be achieved by centralizing costs while preserving the curricular integrity and involvement of local communities. For starters, we’ll need a statewide teacher’s contract.
One serious problem that will require broader understanding will be the need to stabilize the State and teacher’s pension and benefit funds. We’re not alone in having to address this. Institutions from UVM to California have the same problem to varying degrees. Fixing it will require good faith and compromise.
Our new governor will need to redefine "economic development" for Vermonters. The mythology that has developed around business development, job creation and regulation has doomed most efforts from the start. I wouldn’t overpromise on the job creation front. Hopefully, the new administration won’t create jobs in its own sector. In all probability, we’ll lose jobs in state government as we streamline and improve standards of measurement, accountability and transparency among our 8000 plus state employees. But it is possible to do more with less. We all do it every day.
Instead, Governor-elect Shumlin might look to Vermont’s multi-skilled workforce, our working landscape and our existing entrepreneurs and the jobs they have created over two centuries and let that guide his creativity and the creativity of those he enlists to help in this effort. Playing the high stakes game of using taxpayer money to bribe companies to create jobs or to relocate or not to relocate hasn’t worked all that well. Helping them succeed at what they do best or helping with intergenerational ownership or business sale transfers might work better. We’ll need to redefine "small business" to Vermont scale. The federal definition of fewer than 500 or in some cases 1000 employees doesn’t fit us except in a few cases.
Our new governor clearly understands the relationship between the cost of healthcare, economic growth and the wellbeing of Vermonters. I wish him luck with the federal waivers. They’ll be a necessary component of any experiment we try with single-payer healthcare.
Finally, he’ll need to be decisive one way or the other on Vermont Yankee. Will he be open to working with a more responsible owner that offers Vermonters a good rate, or is the age and safety of the plant the sole basis for his relicensing opposition?
All this will constitute a difficult challenge. He will need the cooperation and good will of all Vermonters.
(TAG) For more commentaries by Bill Schubart, go to VPR-dot-net.