By Chris Teale,
Managing Editor, Route Fifty

Gov. Wes Moore this month signed an executive order mandating agencies review data to find cost savings. He also is looking to modernize the state’s permitting and licensing processes.

Much of the talk in recent days has been about President Donald Trump’s federal Department of Government Efficiency, which he established by executive order this week, just hours after taking office.

But separate from that initiative’s promises of saving trillions of dollars from the federal budget and bringing government technology in line with the private sector, Maryland is looking to modernize and streamline its state government operations ahead of what it calls the “worst budget crisis in twenty years.”

Gov. Wes Moore earlier this month signed an executive order directing every state agency to work alongside the Governor’s Office of Performance Improvement to analyze data and find “operational cost savings, streamline operations, and eliminate redundancies to better serve taxpayers.”

The order comes as the state facs a worse fiscal future than the Great Recession of 2008. Maryland officials said one-time federal rescue funding during the COVID-19 pandemic did not fix the state’s yearslong structural deficit.

Click here for full story from Route Fifty