Yesterday, Ed released his “Efficiency + Effectiveness: A Government that Works for ALL Virginians” Plan, which will save taxpayers $200 million and eliminate 1,000 state government jobs through attrition.
Here’s a roundup of what Virginians are watching and reading about the plan:
“Republican hopeful Ed Gillespie is laying out his plan for a smaller.. more efficient.. and better paid state workforce. his plan calls for eliminating one-thousand government jobs.. not by layoffs. but rather.. by not filling them after employees retire…
He says new technology.. streamlining.. and automation would help pick up the slack. half of the money saved would be used to compensate existing employees and for recruiting. Gillespie also wants to appoint a COO. and create an office …”
The Richmond Times Dispatch reports,
“The highlight of Gillespie’s new good-government push is a plan to shrink the size of government without layoffs by allowing 1,000 jobs to disappear from the state’s roughly 105,000 full-time positions as a wave of state workers become eligible to retire, using half of the savings to boost pay for remaining workers.
Gillespie also said he’d create an “Office of Innovation and Efficiency” that would be tasked with finding $200 million in savings, lead a “citizen experience redesign” to improve customer service, appeal to millennials to attract and keep them in public jobs, host a “good government hackathon” to gather ideas from the private sector, and appoint a chief operating officer to oversee performance and report to the governor.”
In Charlottesville, voters learned that Ed,
“has a set of reform proposals to make state government leaner and more effective. Part of the plan looks to the expected wave of retirements that could come during the next governor’s term. Gillespie says 25 percent of state workers will be eligible to retire over the next five years. He recommends not filling one thousand of those positions and then putting in place more automation for some roles. Gillespie also hopes to set aside half of the cost savings to give the state workforce raises and reward incentives. The gubernatorial hopeful also hopes to attract new talent.”
You can learn more about Ed’s plan for streamlining state government here.