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Most, though not all, of these positions could be outsourced, competitively, with a max 2-year contract until there is a solid record of performance. That could save easily one third of the cost of government.

If you could tell these humongous organizations that they had to cut 20% of their staff and could do it arbitrarily (not easy in the "real" world) they would have no problem identifying the 20% of the staff that is pretty much useless, marking time on the phone with friends, playing solitaire on their computer, and spending the rest of their time explaining how they can't take on any tasks because they are "too busy". If the state government is any measure, 20% is about right.

The problem is that the unions have thwarted any kind of personnel performance reviews, so most of the state and local governments do no longer assess their staff's performance. That makes it very difficult to lay off people based on relative effectiveness and not get sued.

So it comes down to institutionalizing a policy based on pay and employment based on performance. It comes down to giant bonuses, that are worth it, to only those top municipal managers who get that done. It comes down to no pay if you don't get that done. We need Chainsaw Als in our municipal and county governments.