Riding Horses

[aiki14]

Thanks to my friend Andrea for the below piece:

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to
generation, says that: "When you discover that you are riding a dead
horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government more advanced strategies are often employed,
such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride
horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's
performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the
dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less
costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more
to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

[Albert0373]

Found this by a person who believed that while this may apply to private businesses, the author did not have experience with government so he gave his take on it

And now we apply it to government as it should be...

As a result of the dead horse issue coming to light we have been asked to perform an investigative audit with the following concerns:

1.) Buying a stronger whip.
Were bids taken for the new whip?

2.) Changing riders.
Did the board properly classify the new riders?
Did the reassignment of the new riders violate merit rules?
3.) Threatening the horse with termination.
Is the horse a classified employee and can the horse actually be terminated without a merit board hearing?

4.) Appointing a committee to study the horse.
Was the dead horse committee paid an excessive amount?

5.) Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses.
Examine travel claims for falsification.

6.) Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
Were the new standards approved by the rules committee and is the horse a merit employee? (See #3).


7.) Reclassifying the dead horse as "living impaired".
See #3 and #6.

8.) Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
Were bids taken to hire contractors, were non-collusion affidavits provided with the bids?

9.) Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed.
Are there receiving reports for the new horses and were the new horses added to the agency inventory?

10.) Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.
Were training funds paid from the proper accounts?

11.) Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
See #6.

12.) Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed....
Can is the dead horse a merit employee and subject to reclassification?

13.) Rewriting the expected performance requirements on all horses.
Were the new performance requirements rules properly approved and added to the current policies and procedures manual for the agency?

14.) Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position
See #3 & #6. Was the promotion of the horse approved by the merit commission?
Under merit rules should other dead horses have been promoted first?
Did the dead horse receive additional pay in accordance with merit rules?

As you can see, the list of concerns will not address the fact that the horse was actually dead, but rather if the agencies response to the horse issue was done in accordance with requirements.

After our audit the agency will replace the new dead horse with another dead horse, only acquired in accordance with policies, and the agency will end up with a new dead horse (costing slightly more than the original and replacement dead horse).

Once our audit becomes public the legislature will "weigh in" and the following will result:

1. A legislative committee will determine how to deal with the dead horse issue.

2. Many of the legislators will "appalled".

3. The committee will recommend 'full body' hearings. More legislators will be "appalled".

4. The full body will create a new agency called the "Dead Horse Commissions (DHC)".

5. A study will be done to determine who should run DHC.

6. The $5 million dollar study has determined that a former legislator (or friend) should run DHC.

7. DHC will spend 5 years (and a couple million) creating a "Statewide Contract For Purchasing Dead Horses".

8. The new 500 page contract will be printed and sent to each agency, including those without dead horses.

9. Many agencies, upon realizing they don't have a dead horse, will suddenly see the need and purchase them under the Statewide contract.

As the state now has many more dead horses...

10. DHC will spend another million or so creating the "Statewide Policy for the Use of Dead Horses".

11. DHC will appeal to the legislature for more funding to deal with the increasing number of dead horses.

11. Legislators will increase the funding to DHC.

A few years down the road the newspaper will question the necessity of all the dead horses and we be asked to do a performance audit. The results of the performance audit will be as follows:


10% of the dead horses cannot be accounted for.
25% of the agencies have more dead horses than employees.
50% of the dead horses were 'under-utilized'.
20% of the dead horses were purchased under sole source contracts rather than the DHC statewide contract.
Upper management often received replacement, and more expensive, dead horses, to replace the smaller and just as dead horses.
The performance report becomes public and again many legislators are "appalled".

More hearings are held concerning the failure to implement dead horse procedures.

A new agency is created called the Dead Horse Oversight Commission (DHOC).

The DHOC will recommend that it may be more cost efficient to purchase dead cows rather than dead horses.

Dead horses will be surplused and replaced with new dead cows.