Wildfires and the Efficient Government Trap
The misguided quest for efficient government
As the wildfires raged in southern California last month, we witnessed bipartisan support for the reintroduction of The Fix our Forests Act, ostensibly designed to reform forest management. At the same time, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced that it will submit to outside investigations to examine the failure of its water system to supply water to firefighters in Palisades. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s 2025-26 budget discussions are certain to continue the contentiousness over the department’s priorities and methods. Other fire departments throughout the state are likely to receive special attention from their city councils over the upcoming months.
Public officials at all levels of government champion government efficiency. Whenever there is a government failure, public officials call for audits intended to identify mismanagement and wasteful spending. Periodically, there are calls for the reform of bureaucracies and those who influence them (e.g., DOGE, draining the swamp, etc.). Although enthusiasm for such initiatives runs strong, the results have been underwhelming. Should we expect the results from the upcoming wildfire investigations and post-event analysis and remedies to be different?
Why do attempts to reform government fail? – Are such attempts disingenuous? Misguided? Poorly executed? Let’s examine the unsuccessful attempts to reform government for the purpose of understanding why such attempts yield so little satisfaction and improving efforts to reform government at all levels.
When auditors audit a governmental agency’s project or program, they focus on operational performance, compliance with applicable policies and rules, and whether the subject program met the intended objectives. An auditor’s findings are confined to this delimited scope. Thus, an auditor may have findings related to how well a program was managed or executed, incidents of noncompliance with internal policies or applicable regulations or laws, and/or the extent to which a project or program met its objectives (i.e., goals).
But what if the agency’s goals are inappropriate? What if that convention center should not have been built by the city? What if that housing program was an ill-advised attempt to compensate for city zoning and building policies that restrict residential development? What if that “educational program” had nothing to do with education? What if universal overreliance on fire suppression has infiltrated the missions and expectations of other institutions that are critical to fire prevention? The scope of an audit does not include an evaluation of such goals and assumptions.
We are disappointed when audits of government programs tell us what we already knew (or strongly suspected) but leave us without the insights needed to prevent a repeat. Such audits leave public agencies with the same goals that gave rise to the disastrous project or program and thus the same goals that will lead to future unsatisfactory results. The wildfires remind us how much is at stake.
If we passively accept the status quo mission and goals when we “reinvent” governmental agencies or programs, we ensure that little substantive change will result. And if the termination of a redundant or unneeded agency or program is not an option, nothing will be reinvented — only shuffled around or repackaged with little or no benefit. Similarly, there is limited benefit to investing in technology to make public employees more efficient, if those employees are not supporting the right goals. And we do ourselves a disservice if, in our rush to reform fire management, we assume that our predecessors ever got the combination of forest management, public land management, building and zoning, insurance, and fire suppression policy right.
Finally, when we “drain the swamp,” we should be not swap out one set of soggy career bureaucrats, cronies, and influencers for another. Such actions leave the status quo missions, goals, and assumptions largely unaffected, thus ensuring the future abuse of government powers and spending authority.
Shifting the focus of government reform
The inappropriate and misguided goals of government have lured us into adopting ineffective strategies for reforming government. In some cases, we have tacitly accepted vague missions that encourage lofty goals and unbound goal creation, resulting in unchecked spending. In other cases, we do not sufficiently challenge prior assumptions, rendering ineffective any attempts to legislate our way out of life-threatening challenges.
In our rush to make government perform its activities more efficiently, let’s not miss the opportunity to ensure that the agencies under examination are taking on the right activities.
Yes, we want our police to take advantage of the latest technology for managing records and executing law enforcement tactics.
Yes, we want government agencies at all levels to function as modern organizations.
Yes, we want forest management, water and power utilities, fire suppression, and private developers and insurance companies to protect us from the fatal risks of building in geographic areas that are known for their vulnerability to fires.
But – we should be careful not to sacrifice individual rights, due process, and public transparency to streamlined bureaucratic processes. Government is not a business. Residents and business might be frustrated that “government doesn’t move fast enough”; but when those inside a public agency are considering changes to expedite decisions, they need to remember that the proper standard of government effectiveness is not efficiency. The proper standard of government effectiveness is the protection of the rights of individual residents and businesses.
Our first critical task is to audit our government agencies’ missions and goals and examine our assumptions. Then, we can audit our government agencies’ projects and programs for the purpose of improving efficiency, reining in spending, or making us safe from a future disaster. And before we jump to legislate our way out of a problem that took decades to fully manifest, let’s examine all facets of the problem without prejudice.
Only then will we have government programs worthy of streamlining, the ability to control spending, and statewide policies that protect our lives and our property.
Mark Moses is a senior fellow with California Policy Center. He has thirty years of experience in local government administration and finance. His recent book, The Municipal Financial Crisis – A Framework for Understanding and Fixing Government Budgeting was published by Palgrave Macmillan and is available from major online booksellers.
https://munifinanceguy.com/ X/Twitter: @MuniFinanceGuy
