The reform of Spain's public administrations was delayed for months by various elections throughout the country and resistance from the political class, which would prefer the current model to stay the same. Regional and town governments have a lot of work to do, and the only places they can save money between now and the year-end cutoff have already been forced on them by the national government in areas like healthcare, education, public services and civil servant payroll.
Even if the cutbacks affect near-term government spending, they won't create deep structural change. The worst part is that nobody has drawn a plan to views all the public administrations collectively and responds to goals that Spanish citizens want to see achieved. Conflating reforms with cutbacks merely leads to disappointment and social unrest.
For that reason, it's necessary to determine where the country is spending unwisely and create efficiencies throughout the public administrations. It's also necessary to cut government payrolls even further. Doing that to regional governments alone could cut 40% of their budgeted spending. Further, getting rid of regional and municipal government companies and organizations -- such as eliminating redundancies -- would aid structural reform.
It is rather difficult to explain to citizens why pharmaceutical and education spending gets cut, but government-sponsored television stations can stay. In order to get the people on board, the government needs to lead by example. Rajoy seems ready to jumpstart reforms after Sunday elections. Hopefully no barriers will pop up in the meantime, especially because the regions have doubled their debt in the last decade without making any adjustments to their spending patterns.
