Government Modernization Announcement

I want to start with a shout-out to Allisa and Jamar.

From Day One, we said we wouldn’t do cabinet meetings in Annapolis…

People would ask: “Why wouldn’t you do them in Annapolis, like all of the other governors have?”

And my response was simple: “We don’t do things just because someone else did them first.”

That’s the philosophy at the heart of our administration.

We don’t do outdated business models.

We don’t want to rebuild someone else’s government.

We don’t want to maintain somebody else’s broken system – and fool ourselves into thinking we can deliver different results. 

It’s why we started last year by releasing the first State Plan in nearly a decade. 

It’s why we launched a Performance Cabinet to share and analyze data, review progress, and deliver better results for Marylanders.

And today, we write the next chapter in that work.

This morning, I signed an executive order to launch a new Government Modernization Initiative for the State of Maryland. 

The initiative is guided by a simple, powerful idea:

Let’s use data to find and fix the things that are clearly broken, but haven’t been touched.

We know what we inherited. We know that the State of Maryland has a lot of antiquated systems that haven’t been addressed in a long time – and then cause a lot of other challenges. 

I think about buying a home “as is.”

When simple problems go unexamined and unfixed, that burden falls on taxpayers. And we won’t accept that. 

It’s time to get Maryland’s house in order. And through this executive order, we will.

Our new Government Modernization Initiative is going to help us find breakage in the system – and mend it.

We are launching a review of government processes to find places where we can save money and cut waste… AND make sure that our public servants have what they need to do their jobs.

We need to maximize the money we already have, to get the best possible value and results in return.

For example: Most Maryland employees get pretty much the exact same laptop when they start work. 

But when we took office, some IT equipment was being bought piecemeal across different parts of the administration.

Different agencies are spending different amounts of money for the same exact equipment. 

So let’s streamline IT purchases across agencies, so we can get the best price on things like laptops and desktop monitors, and save taxpayers money.

Here’s another clear example: 

State government has a fleet of thousands of passenger vehicles. 

But hundreds of state vehicles are driven less than 1,200 miles per year.

Most of the time, these cars are sitting around.

We need to think about which vehicles in our fleet are getting the job done – and which ones are wasting space and money.

These are just a few areas where we believe there is room to modernize our processes and streamline costs:

From the places we work –

To the way we travel –

To the equipment we use. 

And we anticipate that just these efforts to modernize government will save Maryland taxpayers $50 million in the next fiscal year alone –

And that’s just the start.

And like everything we do, this new chapter will be written in partnership — with our state workforce and our vendors.

The Government Modernization Initiative starts right now, under the supervision of our Chief Performance Officer, Asma Mirza.

She’s joined by  Elisabeth Sachs, our new Director for Government Modernization.

And I want to be clear: ALL of our cabinet Secretaries will be critical leaders of this initiative.

Look: The people in this room understand the nature of the historic fiscal crisis we face right now.

Emergency COVID funding from the federal government papered over a structural deficit that our administration inherited. 

We are now facing the worst fiscal crisis in at least twenty years – worse than that of the Great Recession. 

We inherited it. We didn’t create it. But we will fix it.

We’ve been told we have to choose between cutting costs and delivering top-tier services…

But this initiative proves how we can improve government services AND save taxpayer dollars at the same time.

Next week, we will announce our plan to balance the budget. And a key pillar of our proposal centers on modernizing government – beyond this one executive order.

We need to make difficult cuts where necessary; We need to reign in spending; We need to tighten our belts… 

And we need to slow the implementation of certain mandated priorities that need time to be implemented properly – so we can increase efficacy and ensure all state programs are sustainable. 

This work isn’t easy. But our administration is asking the same questions that Marylanders are having around their kitchen tables right now:

How can we live within our means and make sure we spend responsibly – without compromising on what we need in order to thrive?

The solutions aren’t simple. But they are essential for our long-term fiscal health and economic growth.

I am deeply proud of this team, and I look forward to sharing more detail on our work to modernize government in the coming days.

Thank you all so much. That concludes the public portion of our meeting – and we will now proceed to the general business for the day.