Government accountability: Gregoire, Rossi debate plan's merits

By Adam Wilson | The Olympian • Published October 29, 2008

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Gov. Chris Gregoire has won national awards for her management program, but that doesn't seem to be resonating with voters a week before Tuesday's election as she battles Republican challenger Dino Rossi.

What is GMAP?

Gov. Chris Gregoire keeps tabs on how well government agencies are performing by tracking key parts of their jobs in her Government Management Accountability and Performance Program.

Gregoire puts agency heads in the hot seat, reviewing their statistics. And she has some improvements to tout.

Tracking immediate responses to abuse reports, the Children’s Administration reduced recurring child abuse by 25 percent.

Focusing on dangerous traffic corridors, the Washington State Patrol has dropped the rate of fatalities to the lowest level on state record.

Increasing the number of agencies using bulk state contracts, the Department of General Administration and other agencies have saved more than $22 million in two years.

Centers taking 70 percent of the state's customer service calls decreased their average wait time by more than 10 percent in a year.

GMAP: www.accountability.wa.gov

Several polls show Gregoire in a tight race with her rival from the 2004 election, despite the success of her signature program, the Government Management Accountability and Performance Program, or GMAP.

"When you look at what the chief has been doing over at the (state) patrol with reduction of fatalities on the highways, GMAP is a mainstay of what he's been doing. That's lives saved," she said. "But you know what? It's not sexy to put it on a bumper sticker and in a 24-second ad and say 'Let's talk GMAP.'"

Rossi said Gregoire has spent too much the past four years, including expanding her office with the 15-person, $2.5 million-a-year program.

"You can get good information, have it in front of you and still make bad decisions," he said. "You can have all the people you want around you and telling you things, but if you're going to do things in purely a political nature instead of what's right, that's a problem."

GMAP is one of the hottest trends in government management in the country. It earned Gregoire a spot on the cover of Governing Magazine, which declared her its public official of the year in 2007. In March, the Pew Center ranked Washington among the three best-managed states. And last week, the Council of State Government recognized GMAP with its first-ever Governance Transformation Award.

How it works at one agency

At 11:30 a.m., it is fairly quiet at the state Department of Licensing's call center. A few workers cover the phones while others break for lunch.

By noon, the phones will be ringing off the hook in this west Olympia office. But these workers are ready for the lunch-hour crush of callers with questions about their vehicle tabs and driver's licenses.

By staggering lunch breaks for workers, the licensing department has more staff available to answer during peak hours. And by spreading out shifts, workers can answer questions for an hour earlier and an hour later each day.

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