Where is it that government is truly responsive to the needs and wants of the people? Certainly not at the federal level, and very rarely at the state level. It seems the best place to find attentive, responsible politicians is in cities and counties, where there’s nowhere to hide from angry taxpayers.

The new Tacoma (Washington) City Manager, Eric Anderson, has taken it upon himself to actually do what he was brought in to do: balance the budget without cutting services deemed vital to the community. Impossible you say? Or at least that’s what most politicians would say.

Apparently, it’s not:

From the News Tribune:

Last week’s budget presentation was Anderson’s first chance to show how different his administration will look from previous administrations. From the looks of it, it’s going to look a lot different.

Rather than go first to service cuts – closing fire stations, reducing library hours, eliminating the number of cops – Anderson looked at how the city is run.

He and his top managers decided they could deliver the same services with fewer people – especially fewer managers.

The government he took over in July had a ratio of one boss for every 5.4 workers, a management workload far lighter than other cities. (I figure those .4 employees must approve short plats).

This look at supervisors began under former City Manager Jim Walton. But you don’t make enemies if you talk about laying off a bunch of bosses; you make enemies by actually doing it.

Looking inward is a change from past budgets when managers seemingly began with the assumption that every single body in City Hall was vital, that the only way to cut budgets was to reduce services to residents.

That, of course, tested credulity and reality. Certainly in a bureaucracy of 1,350 people there were savings to be found. Anderson found them.

We recommend this Anderson fellow contact Madonna’s body guard; it’s more than likely that all those management positions he’s proposed to cut will inevitably provoke some angry folks to ponder the placement of a horse’s head in his bed or some similar form of Godfather-esque revenge.

Ultimately, doing the right thing is never easy, and cutting government is akin to cutting diamonds – it’s tricky, but when done right, is absolutely splendid.