From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
One rallying cry that voters often get behind is to “change the way politics are done.” That’s sort of like shoveling out your snow covered driveway with spoon. Baby steps. Over in Hawaii, they been cutting government waste by eliminating the flurry of paper generated by lawmakers and lobbyists. This has resulted in over a million bucks to that went right back into the state’s budget gaps. Imagine if Washington can get in on this “change.”
HAWAII SENTATE SAYS CUTTING BACK ON PAPER HAS SAVED $1.2 MILLION
HONOLULU (AP) — Looking to cut government waste, the Hawaii Senate decided two years ago to take aim at a target that was all over the Capitol: paper.
The Senate’s 25 members wanted to slash what they said was pointless paperwork by eliminating the use of millions of sheets of paper that usually ended up crowding lawmakers’ desks or being thrown into waste baskets.
They also sought to reduce the use of the heavy-duty copy machines that kept the briefcases of legislative aides, as well as lobbyists, stuffed at taxpayer expense. The Senate recently reported a two-year savings of more than $1.2 million — nearly eight million pages, or the equivalent of over 800 trees.
“Doing it this way was so different and daunting at first,” said the Senate clerk, Carol Taniguchi. “Now it really seems to be a way of life.”
Before the project, paper was king at the Capitol, as it is in many legislatures nationwide. Each piece of written testimony from the public was copied countless times and distributed to legislators, who often took a quick look at the documents before tossing them into the recycling bin. Tall stacks of multicolored bills dwarfed lawmakers trying to cast votes in the waning hours of each year’s session.
Senate staff members spent hours collating documents by hand and sorting them into folders. “It was brutal. Sometimes it was hot and you’d be sweating,” said Kamakana Kaimuloa, a clerk for the Senate Committee on Higher Education. “It wasn’t fun.”
That was all put to an end when Senate leadership issued an order: no more paper unless absolutely necessary. The public would be given documents on CDs instead of on paper. Bills, testimony and committee reports were put online. The Senate bought laptops, document-reading software licenses and wireless Internet, at a cost of $100,000. Employees told legislators and the public alike that they would have to use their own printers if they wanted paper copies.
You can read the rest of the New York Times article here.
