Government should serve the public in a fiscally responsible manner. Unfortunately, this is not how most agencies at the state or federal levels operate. Agencies (and their leaders) too often care more about increasing their budgets and following their processes than providing quality services. They continue to operate this way even as costs pile up and the national debt hits record levels.

If these trends are not reversed, the future of our country looks bleak. However, there is a solution — a proven model that improves government performance at less cost to taxpayers .

I led the Idaho Transportation Department for more than a decade. As I explain in a recent America First Policy Institute report , we successfully transformed the department to deliver customer-focused services at lower costs. The changes proved that government can operate efficiently.

Prior to the reforms, our agency was under a dark cloud. It had lost the confidence of the governor, the legislature, the media, and the public. Employee morale was low. The department was headed in the wrong direction.

The problem was that, like most government agencies, we were stuck using a 1960s civil service model. Employees were paid based on how many layers were underneath them or how many people they supervised, not on their job performance. The agency had too many layers of management, and decisions were made in a centralized headquarters far from where the actual work was done. Performance measures were based on processes rather than results and were not customer-focused.

Sound familiar? This is how most government agencies work. This business model puts the needs of the agency first rather than the needs of the public. But that was all about to change. With the backing of a conservative governor, we fundamentally changed how the department operated.

To cut bureaucracy, we reduced the layers of management from nine to five, eliminating 62 positions that supervised only one employee. We cut the overall workforce by more than 10% and reduced bureaucratic rules and red tape by 48%.

To maximize return on investment, the department began basing performance measures and employee performance plans on results and outcomes the public can see and benefit from, not a bureaucratic “process.” For example, a new performance metric addressed the time roads and bridges are free from ice and snow during winter storms rather than the amount of salt laid down.

We also started paying employees based on their skills and began measuring performance outcomes, not longevity or the layers of bureaucracy beneath them. And we empowered employees to innovate.

These reforms had a huge effect. Employees were motivated to find better ways to do their jobs because doing so had a positive impact on their performance evaluations and monthly income.

For example, a maintenance crew in Malad, Idaho, proposed a better way to clear roads during snowstorms. Previously, maintenance crews were split into consecutive shifts, with only a third of each crew on duty at any point in time. This made it harder to clear roads during bad weather because so many employees were off duty. That hurt their new performance measures and paychecks.

The employees proposed to “swarm the storm” instead. They wanted to switch to overlapping shifts that varied based on the weather. During winter storm events, everyone would go on duty and clear roads together. This would triple the number of employees on the roads during storms. This idea was adopted agencywide to great success. The time roads and bridges were free of snow and ice during storms went from less than one-third to more than four-fifths. Employee pay and morale also improved.

Employee-driven innovations have saved the department more than a half-million contractor and employee hours and the taxpayers more than $50 million under my leadership. Those savings were reinvested to fund more road and bridge projects across the state. More projects completed without asking for more funding — what a concept!

Implementing outcome-based reforms created a customer-focused agency that works not at the speed of bureaucracy but at the speed of business. Other public- and private-sector organizations can do the same by reducing layers of bureaucracy, giving employees more control over their jobs, focusing decisions on outcomes, not processes, and adopting goals that put the public first, not the organization.

Reforming government agencies so they can operate at the speed of business is the right thing to do. Our country’s fiscal path is unsustainable. The government can and must deliver better services for the public at lower cost.

Brian Ness is a visiting fellow at the America First Policy Institute. He previously served as the director of the Idaho Transportation Department from 2009 to 2022.