Kinder off to good start on Delta Regional Authority spending cuts

Former Missouri lieutenant governor Peter Kinder. a Cape Girardeau native, went to work a few months ago in his new role as alternate Federal Co-Chairman of the Delta Regional Authority.

One of his first major moves was to examine operations and slash more than a half-million dollars in spending.

Kinder said he was “horrified” after assuming the leadership post to find 8.6 percent of the agency’s $30 million budget was being spent on administrative costs, according to a recent article written by Mark Bliss. Kinder said a well-run agency should limit administrative expenses to 5 percent or 6 percent of its budget.

Initial cuts of $430,000 reduced administrative expenses to 7.3 percent of the budget, he said. Since then, the cuts have topped the half-million-dollar mark, according to Kinder. “I think we should be able to do substantially more than that,” said Kinder, who has instructed his staff to continue looking for ways to trim administrative costs.

Kinder has reduced payroll with mostly voluntary retirements.

The federal agency now has 18 staff members, including staff at the headquarters in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., Kinder said. The Delta Regional Authority, Bliss reported, is a federal/state partnership designed to stimulate economic development in the Mississippi River delta region and improve the lives of nearly 10 million residents in parts of eight states, including Southeast Missouri. The agency distributes millions of dollars in federal grants.

Kinder, in other governmental roles he held in the past, had a history of cutting administrative costs. Kinder has started his role on the right foot at finding ways to make this government agency run leaner.