I’d take it further. For many government jobs you don’t even need the positions. Start with zero based budgeting for every job. You’d be able to eliminate 5-15% without incurring public ire because their jobs are so obviously unneeded.
We need a Live Action crew to film government workers in the execution of their duty. Film them doing nothing, chatting, driving around aimlessly. Every afternoon there is a 4 man public works crew that shows up for the last 30-45 minutes of the day and parks near my house to kill the time.
They’re gone now as I’ve complained, likely hiding somewhere else. It would have been better had I filmed them day after day. I wish I had.
I recently got a job in IT with my local county. I’m in my early 50s mind you. The majority of the workforce is in their 50s and believe that they are owed a pension and that early retirement is some sort of right.
They’ve been there for at least 20 plus years; have never upgraded their skills beyond Windows XP (and I’m sure they went kicking and screaming with that) and are overpaid and underworked. I actually enjoy it when my colleagues are off because I feel like I’m working in the private sector again (their workload plus my workload equals average private sector individual workload).
There’s a “programmer” that has never gone beyond Foxpro and is making twice what I do yet relies on ME to sysprep and image Windows 7 machines so that he can “slum it” by deploying my handiwork!!