State Auditor Tom Wagner has suggested some possible cost savings for the state. Will the Legislature follow through on his reports?
Robert Thomas Wagner Jr. is one of those fortunate individuals who has found his calling in life. He has been Delaware’s Auditor of Accounts for 20 years, and he aspires to no other job—in either the public or private sector. As the state’s longest-serving auditor, Wagner has ferreted out fraud in both state and local government. He has led the fight to audit all school districts and the Dept. of Transportation, identifying millions of dollars in cost savings. Most recently, in June, his office published a report on salaries of Delaware school superintendents, which showed them making more than many high-ranking government officials and, in many cases, more than superintendents in neighboring states. According to the report, Delaware superintendents’ salaries range from $113,769 to $193,000, and eight of the 19 Delaware superintendents make more money than the $155,450 paid to state Secretary of Education Lillian Lowery. Wagner and others have suggested that one way to cut costs is to consolidate the state’s 19 school districts. “We have too much administrative cost in public education,” he told The News Journal. “It has to be addressed.” Out & About discussed this proposal and other issues with Wagner by phone recently while he attended the National State Auditors Association Conference in Savannah, Ga. |
First of all, are you a Democrat or a Republican? Your biography on the state website doesn’t have that information
| .I’m the last Republican standing. I’m an endangered species, so the Democrats should be protecting me. |
What kind of reaction have you gotten from state legislators and the governor on your suggestion that school districts should be consolidated and on your report on superintendents’ salaries?
| I haven’t heard a peep out of anybody. And in reality, we have several reports. One was on the superintendents’ salaries. The next one, which was really redoing one we did last year, is on consolidation of vocational school districts. And our next report will deal with sort of the potential cost savings of consolidation of the 19 school districts. |
So are you hoping to get a reaction from legislators after the third report?
| Well, I sent a proposal last year with about $32 million in cost savings to the General Assembly. In a nutshell, I never heard a peep and they said to mind my own business. They also proceeded to take 14 positions away from my office. |
In your opinion, what should the state government be doing to climb out of the financial hole it finds itself in?
The state has to get a handle on its payroll. Our payroll is not sustainable in the long run. I think the key is administrative costs. If you’re talking about public education, and you’re talking about cutting teachers or para-professionals, you’re obviously not doing your job, because there are a lot of administrative costs that should be the first area you look at. But that can be said for a lot of state agencies—we have too many administrators. The revenue streams we’ve had in the past aren’t going to come back. We have to refocus and rethink how we operate, and try to operate in a much leaner fashion. Delaware operates the same way that we’ve operated since the ’60s, with some [minor] changes. Name me any corporation or any large entity that operates the same way it did decades ago. This is the perfect time, when things are tough and money is short, to refocus on how we deliver the services. And obviously our two biggest expenditures would be education as a program and salaries in general. Education is our biggest programmatic expenditure, and 65-70 percent [of that] is salaries. What is happening right now is [we’re] reducing the payroll through attrition. The problem with that is, if you start losing people at agencies such as Corrections, they don’t have enough employees to begin with, and if you’re looking at savings from eliminating those positions and you’re not motivated to try and fill them, what have you really accomplished but putting more pressure on those employees who are already there? So you could be reducing your overall payroll but creating real problems at agency levels. Obviously, the auditor’s office does fact-finding reports or investigations, but what’s done with them is ultimately up to cabinet secretaries, the administrative branch, and the legislative branch. I can’t force any changes to be made. |
Speaking of that, do you have aspirations to any other offices where you might actually be able to act on such reports?
| You couldn’t get me in Washington, and I have no interest whatsoever in being governor. |
What about the state legislature?
| The only way I could ever conceive of doing something like that is if I was so frustrated and ticked off [that I would consider running]. But I think I could be more effective in being auditor. |
Are you in favor of state employees taking an 8 percent pay cut?
| No, I’m against it as it stands. I don’t think it gets you where you need to be. In my humble opinion on this, any type of pay cut we do with employees is going to be a longer-term pay cut, and what needs to be done is cut into administrative costs. Why would we want to punish state employees when we know there’s a longer-term revenue problem? It’s not like we get through this year and everybody gets their salary back. Most are predicting next fiscal year is going to be worse than this fiscal year. A pay cut is a short-term solution that creates other kinds of long-term problems. To me, what we need to do is make tougher decisions in terms of how we reduce the payroll. |
How much do you make as state auditor?
| I think it’s $103,000, somewhere in that neighborhood. |
You don’t know what your salary is?
| I was a state employee before I became auditor, and I couldn’t even tell you what pay grade I was. I don’t pay that much attention to that. The day I have a complaint on my salary is the day I should look for another job. |