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Inefficient: wvOasis problems point to larger issue

State Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, shared the sentiment of many in West Virginia when he said, “I’m so sick and tired of hearing about this Oasis thing. The point of technology is to reduce the number of employees needed and gain efficiencies.”

Carmichael’s frustration was aired after a legislative audit released over the weekend said the Division of Personnel cites nine areas of lost functionality with the new wvOasis computer system, requiring the division to hire three employees who have a combined salary of nearly $100,000. The report is just the latest in a long of reasons to question the wisdom of purchasing the $150 million system.

This report, however, warrants a closer look, as State Auditor J.B. McCuskey has pointed out, primarily because it was news to him.

McCuskey said no one from the Division of Personnel had contacted his office, or the Enterprise Resource Planning Board, which is overseeing implementation of wvOasis, about inefficiencies in payroll. It seems as though that would have been step one — before hiring employees that will drain $100,000 out of state coffers.

But McCuskey is likely correct that a resistance to chance and “general bureaucratic nonsense,” as well as an unwillingness by state agencies to work together, has a lot to do with at least some of the problems being blamed on wvOasis.

It is not unheard of for comfortable but unnecessary bureaucrats to balk at changes in procedure, and to create challenges that make them seem suddenly indispensable. The more obvious bloat in state government is often filled with the kinds of folks who believe bureaucracy exists to serve itself, and show a particular aversion to cooperating with those in other agencies who understand it exists to serve the people.

McCuskey’s comments should serve notice to the heads of those agencies that useless obstructionists must not be allowed to continue to suck taxpayer money out of the system as lawmakers work to right size our government.

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