Indiana Shows The Way On Paperwork Cutbacks

 

By running the papershredders overtime and keeping an eye on generators of red tape, the Indiana state government has saved $1.9 million on printing bills, trimmed $13.5 million from the annual cost of records processing, and eliminated countless hours of work for the state's citizens.

Since 1978, the Indiana Commission on Public Records has been reviewing state paperwork to reduce its burden on both public and private sectors. The results so far: 26,000 state forms have been permanently consigned to the wastebasket; 4,500 forms have been redesigned to be simpler, shorter, and easier to use; and 2,400 filing cabinets have been sent to the warehouse.

Figures like these have made the Indiana paperwork program a model for the rest of the nation. After dispatching his staff to more than a dozen states to explain how the system works, commission director Edwin J. Howell recently held one big meeting in Indianapolis to explain the secrets of the program's success. Records handlers from more than 20 states showed up for the State Paperwork Reduction Conference, co-sponsored by Howell's commission and the National Federation of Independent Business.

The NFIB's interest was clear: Paperwork, whether state or federal in origin, poses a major obstacle for small companies. So far, Howell told the conference, the Indiana commission has focused on eliminating the forms used internally by state agencies. But even so, the commission has eliminated 3,300 forms aimed at businesses, "which means there are 13 million pieces of paper that aren't being filled out each year by the private sector," the director said. The commission found that the private sector saved $300,000 a year after two multipage forms on abandoned property were combined into a single short form.

The commission operates independently of all state agencies, so it is free to ask hard questions about old practices: Is this information necessary? Isn't there another form that will do the same job? Can't these eight pages of verbiage be boiled down to two? "Any time an agency wants to create a new form or reorder an old one, it has to come through us," Howell says. Professional forms designers on the commission's staff consider even such minute details as envelope size (they once saved $5,000 in mailing surcharges by requiring a vendor to use smaller mailers) and the placement of staples ("When a record is microfilmed, the biggest problem is taking out staples," Howell says).

A nationwide effort at reducing paperwork is clearly needed. A recent study by the federal Office of Management and Budget found that the public spent a total of 1.276 billion hours filling out and filing forms last year. More than half that time was spent on tax forms. But C. Louis Kincannon, an assistant administrator at the OMB, calls these figures "a clear underestimate"; he thinks the amount of public time spent could easily be twice that figure.

"Every time you eliminate a line, you've eliminated two or three minutes' work," says John J. Newman, deputy director of the Indiana commission, of the state's efforts to streamline the records-keeping process. "Multiply that by 100,000 copies and those minutes pile up."

So do the dollars. Each redesigned form has cut printing costs by an average of $428, Howell says. If each state form is used 1,700 times a year -- the average found by the commission -- and each use involves 30? in processing costs, eliminating 26,000 forms means an annual cost reduction of $13.5 million, according to Howell.

In the future, more of those savings will be going to businesses. "The spin-off from our efforts will eventually be felt by the private sector," Howell says. "They'll see fewer forms and better ones coming out of Indianapolis. They may not notice it, but they'll be spending less time dealing with the state and more time on their businesses."