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11-16-03

 

Arnold had it right when he said in his campaign ads that the crux of our state's problem was that we're spending more than we're taking-in, too bad he's decided to "fix" the deficit with more borrowing, while forgetting his own pre-election observation that reigning in spending was the real solution. Having had plenty of experience with how the state spends it's (our?) money, I can personally vouch for how carelessly our elected leaders and their hordes of state employees pour our hard-earned tax money down their gold-plated rat holes.

 

My first experience with Sacramento's taxpayer -sponsored largess was during a five-year stint living and working in the state capitol, running a business that relied heavily on government contracts. We did body and paint work on commercial and government trucks, along with law enforcement vehicles and some industrial production-line paint work as well. Our client list included the FBI, Cal Trans, the CHP, the DFG, The DWR, city parks department, as well as every law enforcement agency within fifty miles. The general rule of thumb was that the smaller the department the more careful they were with their money, and that the worst offenders were located within the vast bureaucracies of the titans of state government, like Cal Trans.

 

Working with Cal Trans was like dealing with a race of alien retards, who shared the same depth of vision and forethought displayed by the bureaucrats running the Soviet Union shortly before it's collapse. While everything done by Cal Trans was also handled by parts of the private sector, exposure to the Cal Trans approach was always a unique and disturbing experience. Cal Trans didn't care how the rest of the industry did it, they had their own way, which in nearly every case was frightfully expensive. Our parent

corporation custom built all kinds of tow trucks, from little Ford Super-Duty's to the fifty-ton Peterbuilts and Kenworths, and Cal Trans was a good fleet-sales customer. But while we could take a bare chassis and roll a

fully quipped and painted wrecker out the door for most customers in about eight working days, a Cal Trans job would take weeks. A Cal Trans job usually begin with taking a crew over to the downtown Cal Trans yard to pick up the bare chassis, which is where the first signs of money-abuse were hard to miss. This particular Cal Trans vehicle storage yard typically had around two hundred brand-new trucks and vans within it's confines, with some in bewilderingly poor condition. Many were caked in dust, had flat tires, or even broken windshields. Yet still they would buy more new ones, which would be parked next to their cousins rotting in the blazing Sacramento summer sun. Eventually a local TV news team did a story on the neglect and bizarre

buying patterns and some of the worst cases were dealt with, but the basic problem remained that the Cal Trans purchasing department wasn't communicating with the people actually using the vehicles.

 

But back at the shop the real fun began, as the next contact with Cal Trans unfolded as we rolled out the blueprints. This in itself was a novelty, since every other customer worked off a standard order form, with possibly a few extra notes by the salesman if something special was ordered. But not Cal Trans, who had exquisitely detailed renderings of the smallest item, in three views, no less! Once the blueprints were deciphered work would crawl along until the inevitable visit by the lords of all that Cal Trans does,

the engineers. Cal Trans engineers had their own sets of rules, which were strictly obeyed at all times. Rule one was to never work alone, all excursions were group affairs, and the larger the better. Nothing, no matter

how inconsequential, could be built without the all-important blueprints.

Another rule was that no matter how much sense there was in doing something the way the rest of the towing industry did it, Cal Trans knew better, and would blaze their own trail into the unknown. Of course cost was no object, and the primary goal was to make the job as labor intensive for Cal Trans employees(engineers in particular) as possible.

 

A perfect example of Cal Trans largess was emergency flare boxes, which might seem like a hard thing to screw-up on. For every other customer we bolted a ten-dollar waterproof plastic box to the inside of one of the truck body toolboxes or behind the driver's seat, but not for Cal Trans. Cal Trans had their own boxes fabricated from scratch out of heavy-gauge steel plate, which were coated in acid-etching zinc chromate primer and a low VOC urethane topcoat of Omaha orange, sprayed to Cal Trans specifications. Each

box ended up costing around $250 by the time we were done with them, and they worked no better than the $10 plastic ones. Bumpers were another example of Cal Trans-only weirdness, which as always cost some serious dough. Cal Trans push bumpers had to have vertical guards that would hinge and swivel out of the way when the massive one piece hoods were tilted forward, which made them totally unique. Where everyone else had a bumper consisting of a face piece, pad and two mounting plates, a Cal Trans bumper

had nearly forty mostly hand-crafted parts. Cal Trans claimed it was cost effective to protect the expensive fiberglass hoods from damage, but in the real world drivers who made a habit of crashing the boss's trucks were shown the door, instead of given a brand-new ride to wreck.

 

The list of "special" items would go on-and-on, from undercoating steel plate that wouldn't have rusted through in fifty years of Truckee winters, to fuel and power-sucking automatic transmissions for the entire fleet. While the money was good, we all felt a little guilty and relieved when the latest batch would pass inspection and head off on their new life on California's freeways. After my wife changed jobs and lost our health care coverage I heard of a job opening in the Cal Trans paint shop from one of their employees, and decided the bennies made it worth applying for. Cal Trans had two painting facilities, one in the LA area and one in Sacramento, and the total of six journeyman painter jobs state-wide were considered real gravy work. The pay was great, the work and customers undemanding, and the bennies and job security couldn't be beat. So one morning I ditched work to go downtown for the interview, and got another big dose of Cal Trans

reality. As I sat in the waiting room I saw someone I assumed was also interviewing for the job storm out of the office muttering something about there being no job, and figured the guy had just had a hard time with the questioning. So now it was my turn, and I sat down to face my three inquisitors. One was the head of the Cal Trans maintenance facility, the other two were mid-level bureaucrats who didn't know a truck from their elbow. The interview started well enough, since I was on solid ground with my extensive background of doing work to their specs, until the talk turned to their own painting facility. The maintenance chief asked what I knew about it, and like a moron I not only explained how the system worked, but added that it wasted $600 worth of material every time they fired it up, something a paint company rep clued me in on. The two know-nothings appeared to be horrified at that particular revelation, as the maintenance chief sputtered some lame excuses for the senselessness of it. Suffice to say the interview had ended at that point, which was when the REAL shock came. The previous interviewee was right, there was no damn job! Over sixty people had applied for the alleged opening and over forty were interviewed, but they were only compiling a list of POSSIBLE candidates in case one of the three guys in the Sacramento shop decided to leave their well-padded nest. This would only happen if retirement or accidental death occurred, and neither condition was imminent as far as anyone knew. So multiply a forty-five minute interview by forty-plus candidates, add some mid-level management types and you have a boondoggle that reoccurs at two-year intervals, regardless of need.

 

Every state agency I've had ongoing contact with operates on the same principles as Cal Trans, though generally on a smaller scale. State Ag department, department of Education, Department of Water Resources, the DMV and CDF are all based on the "bureaucracy first!" model, and their combined wastefulness and lack of accountability comprise the bulk of the state's budget dilemma. But there's another component much closer to home that does it's share of damage too, and that's our own local county board of supervisors. Nearly every week state grant money requests are approved with many relegated to the consent agenda where they aren't even discussed, let alone debated. County supervisors like Lake County's Board chairman Gary Lewis have publicly stated many times that ANY time state money is available it's given the thumbs-up, since after all, the state IS robbing the counties blind, and this makes it kind of even. Of course once the request is approved whatever the money is for is completely and conveniently forgotten about, so there is no recollection of the deed let alone accountability for how the money was spent. So if Arnold thinks he can save us without redesigning the way our state departments and agencies do business from the ground up, don't get your hopes up, he's not that good an actor.

 

hellsbnd@pacific.net

 

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