Can Sanders really trim $300 million from state government through ‘cost-savings and efficiency’?

Arkansas state government can save $300 million over the next six years simply by streamlining and centralizing various internal functions — all while delivering better services to the public and paying state employees well. 

Such is the audacious claim of a progress report released Monday morning by Arkansas Forward, an initiative of Gov. Sarah Sanders that aims to “save money and improve services for the people of Arkansas.” (If the name sounds familiar, you may be confusing it with “Forward Arkansas,” a nonprofit education initiative that’s been around for much longer.)

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Though the report doesn’t say it outright, the lion’s share of the work was presumably done by McKinsey & Co., the globetrotting, D.C.-based management consultancy firm that’s become infamous in recent years for its role in scandals from the opioid crisis to bribery schemes overseas. The state awarded McKinsey a $5.5 million contract earlier this year to assist Arkansas Forward in its efforts to make government more efficient. You have to spend money to save money, apparently.

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If sheer volume of paper is any indication of effort, the consultants have earned their keep. The report clocks in at nearly a thousand pages, though it notably lacks a table of contents (and, I couldn’t help but notice, it’s dated “October 9” throughout). 

It lays out plans in five areas: information technology, purchasing, vehicles, workforce and payroll, and government buildings. Most of the promised savings are concentrated in IT and procurement, which the report says should be centralized and integrated across state agencies. The state should also reduce the size of its vehicle fleet, reduce the “physical footprint” of state government, and create a real estate database “to identify areas of cost savings,” it says.

Sanders said the report was the product of “a sweeping, comprehensive look at government efficiency” in the state. “Many of Arkansas Forward initiatives are already underway and I look forward to this project continuing and reducing the burden of government on our taxpayers,” the governor said.

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A cynic might ask whether we’ve been here before. Didn’t former Gov. Asa Hutchinson launch a once-in-a-generation “transformation” of Arkansas government just five years ago? And wasn’t a big piece of Hutchinson’s effort the centralization of IT and procurement within a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Transformation and Shared Services, or TSS?

Let me break the fourth wall of journalism for a second and be honest with you here: I really don’t know whether most of Arkansas Forward’s proposals are good or not. Even if I read their 956-page report in full, I don’t have the necessary knowledge of procurement rules or IT systems to have an educated opinion about such things.

I know there are plenty of questionable or wasteful deals when it comes to state contracts, and I know Arkansas’s record on managing its IT systems has been less than stellar. I’m often disappointed in what state government delivers, and real reform would be welcome. But there’s plenty of reasons to be skeptical of big, ambitious proposals that promise to save money, improve services and keep state employees happy all at the same time. (And some of the panel’s recommendations are clearly bad, such as a proposal to make TSS the clearinghouse for Freedom of Information Act requests to all state agencies.)

We’ll wait and see what concrete details emerge in the upcoming legislative session (which begins in January) and beyond. Or, be a hero and read the whole thing yourself below.