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MADISON, Wis. — Last Wednesday, in the grand Beaux-Arts Capitol here, throngs of lawmakers and tourists milled around upstairs. Matt Adamczyk, the newly elected state treasurer, however, was in his basement office — alone.
Just a week earlier, there were two other employees in the office, but Mr. Adamczyk had them fired, explaining that they were a waste of taxpayer money and no longer needed. Laptops and telephones were scattered around a table, remnants from a time when the treasurer’s office was much busier.
Next on Mr. Adamczyk’s to-do list: Get rid of his own job.
In what may be the ultimate expression of many Republicans’ desire to whittle down government to the bone, Mr. Adamczyk ran for treasurer on the promise to eliminate the position during his one and only term in office
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Getting rid of his own job would require a constitutional amendment, a measure that technically could not happen until 2017, assuming the Legislature approved it, Mr. Adamczyk said.
But in his first few weeks in office, he has searched for what he calls egregious government waste, and tried to stamp it out.
Eliminating his employees’ jobs has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. Then there is the smaller stuff: an unused printer sits ready to be returned. Laptop cases that belong to no one were stacked on a wooden table. He spent one day recently on the phone with Verizon trying to determine why his office had more active cellphone contracts than it did employees.
During a tour of his office, Mr. Adamczyk pointed out examples of how his predecessors, in his opinion, frittered away taxpayers’ dollars.
Opening a large cardboard box, he pulled out tiny blue plastic piggy banks with the department’s name printed on the side. “Do we need these?” he asked. “No, we don’t.”
Mr. Adamczyk held up a new iPhone, still sealed in plastic. “This was a ‘floater’ phone,” he said. “No one ever used it. It cost $58 a month. You almost can’t make this stuff up.”
There is plenty of bipartisan support for abolishing the treasurer’s office. But some of Mr. Adamczyk’s recent efforts to root out waste have caused many people, including some fellow Republicans, to question whether his motives go beyond penny pinching.
Mr. Adamczyk has garnered attention by targeting Tia Nelson, a state official who heads the agency that he helps supervise, the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. Ms. Nelson is the daughter of Gaylord Nelson, a former governor and United States senator best known for creating Earth Day.
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Small potatoes? Yeah. But it's still refreshing to see.
MADISON, Wis. — Last Wednesday, in the grand Beaux-Arts Capitol here, throngs of lawmakers and tourists milled around upstairs. Matt Adamczyk, the newly elected state treasurer, however, was in his basement office — alone.
Just a week earlier, there were two other employees in the office, but Mr. Adamczyk had them fired, explaining that they were a waste of taxpayer money and no longer needed. Laptops and telephones were scattered around a table, remnants from a time when the treasurer’s office was much busier.
Next on Mr. Adamczyk’s to-do list: Get rid of his own job.
In what may be the ultimate expression of many Republicans’ desire to whittle down government to the bone, Mr. Adamczyk ran for treasurer on the promise to eliminate the position during his one and only term in office
............
Getting rid of his own job would require a constitutional amendment, a measure that technically could not happen until 2017, assuming the Legislature approved it, Mr. Adamczyk said.
But in his first few weeks in office, he has searched for what he calls egregious government waste, and tried to stamp it out.
Eliminating his employees’ jobs has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. Then there is the smaller stuff: an unused printer sits ready to be returned. Laptop cases that belong to no one were stacked on a wooden table. He spent one day recently on the phone with Verizon trying to determine why his office had more active cellphone contracts than it did employees.
During a tour of his office, Mr. Adamczyk pointed out examples of how his predecessors, in his opinion, frittered away taxpayers’ dollars.
Opening a large cardboard box, he pulled out tiny blue plastic piggy banks with the department’s name printed on the side. “Do we need these?” he asked. “No, we don’t.”
Mr. Adamczyk held up a new iPhone, still sealed in plastic. “This was a ‘floater’ phone,” he said. “No one ever used it. It cost $58 a month. You almost can’t make this stuff up.”
There is plenty of bipartisan support for abolishing the treasurer’s office. But some of Mr. Adamczyk’s recent efforts to root out waste have caused many people, including some fellow Republicans, to question whether his motives go beyond penny pinching.
Mr. Adamczyk has garnered attention by targeting Tia Nelson, a state official who heads the agency that he helps supervise, the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. Ms. Nelson is the daughter of Gaylord Nelson, a former governor and United States senator best known for creating Earth Day.
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Small potatoes? Yeah. But it's still refreshing to see.
