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Louisiana gets an extra $1.1 billion in its bank account this year—more than enough to make legislators giddy in anticipation of a spending spree. Already, though, Angèle Davis, is uttering phrases like, “reduce government expenditures,” “eliminate inefficiency, waste and redundancy” and “competitive budgeting.”

In a year when oil prices and disaster rebuilding have handed the state a tidy surplus, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s newly appointed commissioner of administration is determined to rein in spending. She is dead set, too, on a strategy tried and true in the corporate universe but foreign to most government entities: tying money to performance.

History most certainly will be her toughest foe. Spending in the State Capitol has tripled in the last 12 years, with last year’s budget increasing it nearly 18%—more than twice the national average growth. Today, one of every 42 Louisianans takes home a state paycheck—a ratio that beats out seven other southern states, including Texas and Florida.

Moreover, the state has nearly $31 billion in liabilities—including a rather sizable gap in retirement benefits—and five-year projections indicate deficit spending is on its way.

Those familiar with Davis’ work—both as a deputy commissioner under Gov. Mike Foster and more recently as Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu’s top administrator in the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism—insist the 39-year-old former basketball standout from Clinton can get it done.

“If anyone can do that, Angèle is the one who can,” says Council for A Better Louisiana President and CEO Barry Erwin. “It’s hard to do in government. But while she was secretary of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, they implemented a plan like that over there. The experience on the whole has been a breath of fresh air. It was a challenge to be sure, but worth the efforts.”

Young talent

More than a decade ago, a towering, dark-eyed, dark-haired young woman working for the Consumer Credit Counseling Service caught the attention of one of the agency’s trustees, Mark Drennen.

Born in Baton Rouge and reared in East Feliciana Parish, Davis went from Silliman Institute to Spring Hill College in Alabama on a scholarship, spent a couple of years on the New York advertising scene before returning home to work nights getting her MBA at LSU.

Drennen, then-president of the Public Affairs Research Council, told her she wouldn’t be working at CCCS much longer. He thought she had more talent than that.

Not long after being named Foster’s commissioner of administration, Drennen phoned with a job offer. He put Davis in charge of communications, but it wasn’t long before she was involved in policy and budget matters. She left for a brief stint at IBM Global Services, then returned as deputy commissioner of administration.

“It struck me that she had intelligence and poise,” Drennen says. “She was very comfortable talking to people she didn’t know well yet. She was also prepared and organized. She had a great personality to go along with being very talented.”

Drennen, whom Davis considers a mentor, introduced her to the concept of making government run more like a business. But she also experienced the realm of severe fiscal crisis when the price of oil dropped precipitously, saddling the administration with enormous deficits. Even then, the Legislature couldn’t resist the risky venture of spending one-time revenues—these from a national tobacco settlement—on recurring operating expenses.

When Foster’s second term ended, Davis left for a consulting job in the private sector, never planning to return to public work.

A ‘strategic thinker’

That’s when Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu phoned.

He and Davis had worked together on a commission to improve the juvenile justice system in Louisiana, and he wanted her as secretary of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

She said, “No.” He called again. She said, “No.” He called again. She said, “I’ll think about it.” Then she said, “No.” He talked her into it.

About that time, Davis became a follower of David Osborne, a Minneapolis management consultant who wrote Reinventing Government, Banishing Bureaucracy and The Price of Government. She was drawn in particular to the concept of government agencies budgeting for outcomes.

With help from Osborne’s firm, Public Strategies Group, Davis tossed out the old way of spending money. In a time when Hurricane Katrina had decimated the tourism industry, she required divisions within the department to make offers targeting four specific priorities. The goal was to stimulate innovative, entrepreneurial thinking that might help resurrect the industry. Rather than across-the-board cuts that weaken every program, those that didn’t promise results for the dollar simply would be eliminated.

It took a while to catch on. Osborne notes in his 18-page report on the process that most employees simply pitched programs that were already funded. When rankings came out, “program managers looked at the list and, in some cases, swallowed hard.”

Three parks, three welcome centers, four museums and the State Library General Collection were zeroed out, though in the end, those cuts proved unnecessary. Money was redirected to five new promising proposals, including an idea to centralize marketing and product development so campaigns could promote all the attractions in one region, an initiative to market regions and an e-commerce Louisiana store on Amazon.com.

There, Davis invoked a tough management style, entering into performance agreements with division leaders that were tied back to those same four priorities. “I’m very results-oriented,” she says. “I constantly use the example, ‘I’m not only evaluating you on your performance, but I’m evaluating you on the ability of your entire agency to achieve the results of this strategic plan.’”

After working with Davis for three years, Osborne considers her a “strategic thinker.”

“What happens in government is that people in positions often get overwhelmed by the crisis of the moment,” he says. “You need people who can step back and see the big picture and think strategically about where the organization needs to go and how you’re going to get there. That’s what I saw her do at Culture, Recreation and Tourism.”

Passion for public service

This time around, Davis didn’t balk at the chance to forego private-sector work for public service.

She is intent, however, on bringing business practices to government agencies—and that includes the budgeting-for-outcomes strategy.

“I really do have a passion for public service and for helping our state,” Davis says. “I enjoy creating and bringing business-like approaches to government. It’s kind of like questioning the status quo. Why does government do some of the things that government does? Are they really necessary? Are they duplicative? Are they efficient? Are they transparent? Where is the accountability? Or are particular programs and services needed? And if they are, should that be government’s function?”

She knows that will be harder to do in the midst of a surplus than it was in the bare-bones years of the Foster administration. But she doesn’t fear making what she terms the “difficult decisions” necessary to move money where it really needs to go. Jindal has said his top priorities are ethics, education and infrastructure.

“You have to make difficult decisions that get the results that are important for the state,” Davis says. “And I think that the taxpayers have demonstrated that they do want to see a difference. They’re not interested in politics or political decisions; they’re interested in those decisions that move the state forward. That’s what [Jindal’s] platform was all about. And I think that’s why he was elected.”

Davis’ ultimate success, however, obviously depends upon whether she can convince legislators to buy in. As Foster notes, budgeting for outcomes is “a great idea we’ve tried for years.” Drennen, who has just begun a new career as a lobbyist in Baton Rouge, remembers when Foster tried to cut the so-called slush fund and legislators put it back. “Many times the governor is well-intentioned and makes the difficult cuts,” he says. “It takes more than just the governor when trying to prioritize the budget.”

Jim Brandt, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, thinks Davis will fare well.

“She has an excellent skills set,” he says. “She’s politically savvy and has excellent people skills, which is ideal for what the job entails. The job entails saying, ‘No,’ a lot, but doing it in a way that people still have respect for the person and the division. And she’s already shown she can do that.”