My dad used to tell a story about a hard working guy who wasn’t that bright who had been hired by the highway department.
 
The supervisor knowing he had to be “task specific” assigned the man to paint lines on the highway.  “Put the paintbrush in the bucket,” the supervisor instructed. “Paint a stripe.  Put the paintbrush back in the bucket.  Paint another stripe.”
 
The first day of work, the man painted five miles of stripes.  The second day, three miles.  The third day, only one mile.
 
When the supervisor asked what was going on, the employee said "Boss I keep working harder and harder, but it keeps getting to be a longer walk back to that bucket."

I tell this story because I am submitting three bills this year to reform where the state bureaucracy has - like the man painting the stripes - done exactly what they have been asked.  And, with poor results.
 
The first measure would exempt projects up to $750,000 from Department of General Service (DGS) review as long as such a project meets state building code.  DGS is the land management agency of the Commonwealth.
 
The need for this bill is supported by lots of agencies who say DGS is being, well, a tad too thorough.  Indeed, I have documentation from agencies which state that DGS has required snow load analysis for commencement tents used in May, required engineering for trail-head kiosks, and requiring at least 3 architectural and engineering reviews for a 1/2 acre parking lot.
 
The second bill has already been submitted and is HB139, which exempts agencies from having to buy office furniture and supplies from “prison industries” (Virginia Correctional Enterprises, or VCE)  if the price of commonly commercially available items from VCE is 10% more than the cost of the item as it is commercially available.
 
The third bill rewrites section 53.1-51 of the Code which states that failure to purchase items through VCE is an act of malfeasance (!!!).  My measure simply adds an exemption to the malfeasance clause to say that if such purchase was made for the purpose of reducing the expenditure of public monies, it is not malfeasance – it’s just saving the taxpayer money.
 
As back up for the need for the two VCE bills I have some documentation… copies of invoices for over $20,000 for office cubicles purchased to outfit a six person State Police.  I further have documentation that "[o]btaining pricing and product code numbers for off-the-shelf items can take months", "VCE has limited choices...and availability is not guaranteed", and delivery is problematic at best.  There is one example of a delivery truck arriving with no cargo.
 
Having prisoners work is a worthy goal.  However, we shouldn’t subsidize a single department to the detriment of all of other agencies.  If we need to spend more money on the rehabilitation portion of corrections (and honest work is rehabilitation) that’s OK.  But let’s not bury one agency’s line item in the other agency’s expenditures.
 
And with all these bills, it is not that agencies are doing anything wrong… it is that we have given them the wrong instructions.  It’s time for Virginia to get the bucket closer to the paint brush.