In the last month the legislature was hit with a wave of concerned citizens who will be directly affected by the proposed budget cuts. Some wore tags that said “cuts hurt” and some wore tags that said “no new taxes.” I must admit it has been quite an experience.

It seems every year I have been in the legislature this same kind of demonstration takes place. Budget cuts do hurt, I do not disagree. But a tax increase at this time is the wrong thing to do. So you ask what the answer is. I say state government MUST become efficient, stop duplication, get rid of fraud and eliminate unnecessary jobs/entitlements. Let me give you a few examples.

Last month my local nursing home got a number of letters in the mail from the DHHS. The letter contained three pages. The first was a quick note to say DHHS had changed the name of a manual. The second page was the new manual title page. The third page was blank. The cost to send the letter was $1.05. The second letter contained a notice to a patient in a nursing home telling that patient that they must bill their private insurance before they bill MaineCare. The nursing home already does this. The cost of that letter was $.33. The last letter was a envelop that contained a number of brochures on long-term health care. The cost to send these was $4.05. The department sending the brochures visits the nursing homes once every two weeks. The brochures could have been delivered in person.

Now let’s look at duplication. A wine store opened in one of my towns. Three inspectors from the state came to audit the facility. They came at separate times in separate cars. Why wasn’t this done with one inspector, one time?

Last month there was an audit at a hospital outside my district. There were seven auditors. There were actually fewer patients in beds then there were auditors. The audit took all day. I have been told one auditor could have done this audit in a half a day.

Now let’s look at fraud. In the Governor’s budget, the MaineCare patient visits changed to 15 from 18. When the hospitals were asked how this would be accounted for they provided that they could answer for any patients that came to their hospital for care. When DHHS was asked how the accounting would be done when a patient went to a different hospital there was silence in the room.

Let’s look at unnecessary jobs/entitlements. Personnel services expenditures grew from $712 million in 2002 to $877 million in 2009, a 23-percent increase. The general fund grew from $352.4 million to $434 million over the same period of time. The good news is that the authorized positions actually dropped 719 with 579 coming from the general fund during this period. However, general expenditures for the positions rose from $53,413 in 2002 to $72,135 in 2009. The state is spending more money on less people.

Recently I was told that MaineCare allows for Gastro-Bypass surgery. This is true. There is a list of criteria that needs to be met, but the operation can be paid for by taxpayer money. Perhaps this elective surgery payment, even with the long list of criteria, needs to be revisited. Maybe today we just cannot pay for it anymore.

These are examples. I know for a fact that the hospital, nursing homes and businesses around the state have tightened their belts. They have become efficient, tried to eliminate duplication eliminate fraud where applicable. They have made the necessary and painful decisions about jobs. I also know we as individuals have reevaluated elective spending. Maybe the state should too. All of this needs to be done BEFORE any taxes are raised. In fact it should be done before we make any wholesale cuts in programs

Across the board, budget cuts are painful but easy to make. Investing in efficient and effective business management is difficult but in the long run provides a real direction to manage a budget.

The Governor and I agree. Government must become more streamlined before taxes increase. Our methods to get there differ.

As always it is my pleasure to serve the people of District 90. If you have ant questions about this or anything else please contact me at 645-3420 or email me at drtom16@hotmail.com.

Tom Saviello of Wilton represents House District 90: the towns of Avon, New Vineyard, Phillips, Strong, Temple and Wilton, plus the unorganized territories of East Central Franklin and Perkins and Washington townships.