Chapter 584: Tang Bing's Reprimand

Remotely criticized Peng Yongchang for a while, Tang Bing said: "Tomorrow morning, you accompany me to Yingjun City for special research on institutional reform work. In work related to the overall situation of the province, no one should start from personal or small group interests, speak up or reach out to the organization, shirk responsibility, wrangle, or perfunctorily pass the buck!"

Lu Fan replied: "Thank you, Secretary, for your support of the reform work. To be honest, regarding Yingjun City's institutional reform, I've wanted to beat the retreat drum. After all, Comrade Yongchang Peng is a member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee; perhaps Yingjun City's situation is indeed special, and being too rigid on my part would not be appropriate."

Tang Bing waved his hand and said: "This internal institutional reform is dictated by circumstances; it is both inevitable and timely. The entire province must deeply recognize the importance of institutional reform, strengthen the sense of reform mission, participate fully in the reform, and absolutely not allow any 'roadblock' or 'stumbling block' to appear."

After chatting a few more sentences, Tang Bing's expression changed, and he suddenly asked: "Are you investigating Li Mingyang?"

Lu Fan was slightly stunned, then replied: "I've heard some rumors."

Tang Bing then said: "Secretary Xiao Bin personally greeted me, requesting that Nanyuan City's Discipline Inspection Committee Secretary Du Wenlong be appointed; what is your opinion?"

Lu Fan smiled slightly and said: "This is good for both Huayuan and him personally; I firmly support it."

Tang Bing, after some thought, said: "Alright, the Organization Department will go through the procedures. I hope Du Wenlong can seize this rare opportunity! This Li Mingyang truly disappoints and pains me! He has abandoned his original aspiration, betrayed the organization's trust and cultivation, and pushed himself into an abyss, falling into dire straits; he will ultimately reap the bitter fruit of disloyalty and dishonesty to the Party! We all must take this as a warning, uphold integrity in governance, take responsibility and act, and not repeat his mistakes."

Lu Fan echoed: "What the Secretary said is that leading cadres must always hold a sense of awe, with the self-discipline of 'treading on thin ice, standing in the deep abyss,' to stand upright, speak principles, observe discipline, resist corruption, and keep the bottom line; orders must be carried out, prohibitions enforced; to be an upright person and a clean official."

"Alright, you go ahead and get busy. Regarding Li Mingyang's matter, we'll keep in touch at any time!"

"Okay, Secretary, please feel free to give me instructions anytime!"

Just as Lu Fan was about to rise and leave, Tang Bing added: "If the Deputy Secretary position is vacant, I support you!"

Lu Fan showed gratitude: "Thank you, Secretary, for your support!"

Returning to the office, Lu Fan personally called the heads of each guidance group to gain a detailed understanding of the progress of institutional reform in each city and determined the next steps' focus.

In Nanyuan City, Discipline Inspection Committee Secretary Du Wenlong swiftly handed over his work, happily went to the provincial capital to report to Secretary Xiao Bin, and directly participated in Li Mingyang's external investigation work.

On April 7, Secretary Tang Bing researched the institutional reform of public institutions in Yingjun City; after looking at several departments, he convened a reporting meeting in the City Government conference room, presided over by Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee and Municipal Party Secretary Peng Yongchang, who delivered a welcome address, and Municipal Organization Department Director Yu Weihong reported on the progress of Yingjun City's categorized promotion of public institution reform.

After Yu Weihong's report concluded, Peng Yongchang added: "Secretary, Director Lu, Yingjun City's public institution reform is entering a critical phase. Firstly, we will schedule a 'tough assault' period by reversing the timeline, deepening opinions on the key areas of the 'do-it-all-in-one-trip' reform, coordinate public institution reform, and strive to complete this round of reform by the end of June."

Secondly, the reform has entered the 'deep water' of genuine action, involving the merger and reorganization of public institutions, which is tantamount to breaking the 'iron rice bowl', causing a huge psychological impact on public institution personnel.

Considering the characteristics of Yingjun City's public institution personnel being numerous, categories diverse, situation complex, and management inconsistent, I believe that deepening public institution reform must place greater emphasis on the reform's systemic, holistic, and coordinated nature, striving to find the greatest common divisor of reform.

Problem One: The fiscal classification guarantee policy is inconsistent with the classified implementation of government procurement of services. In other words, Category One public welfare institutions should be fully funded by the fiscal budget, while Category Two should receive appropriate fiscal subsidies. However, the reality is far from this: the city-level public institutions number 554, with about 50,000 employees, yet only over 2,000 employees in Category One institutions receive full fiscal funding; the fiscal classification and institutional office classification do not match, making it impossible to avoid additional expenditures while gradually achieving streamlining and efficiency gains.

Problem Two: The boundary between the supervisory department's approval authority and the public institution's legal person autonomy is unclear. With ambiguous management boundaries, execution becomes vague; both the supervisory department and the public institutions are confused about whether to manage or not, what should be managed and what should not, and standards vary across regions and units; we take a cautious stance on this.

Problem Three: The dual-track operation of some units may lead to fragmented reform. Firstly, among grassroots personnel working in government agencies in mixed posts, the proportion in townships nearly reaches 100%; secondly, in the party school and college systems, the units are publicly funded civil service institutions, management personnel belong to the publicly funded civil service cadre, but teaching staff still hold public institution status.

Secretary, I believe that public institution reform must be pursued with steady steps; the scientific soundness of the reform path directly determines success or failure. Public institution reform is a complex systemic project involving management systems, institutional staffing, fiscal investment, and all aspects; we will place public institution reform on the table for overall consideration and design a feasible reform path.

As they listened, Tang Bing's face grew increasingly grim; these problems had already been reported by Lu Fan earlier, whose proposed solution was 'first put in place, then streamline; first operate, then improve.' Other localities can implement it, but is Yingjun City special? This is purely an attitude issue! It's simply dragging the province backward!

Seeing Secretary Tang Bing's gaze, Lu Fan knew he had to step up, and he said in a deep voice: "This institutional reform, the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government have made a resolute determination to win; it is a profound reshaping, reconstruction, and optimization, with great magnitude, depth, and breadth, exceeding many people's expectations, fully demonstrating Huayuan's revolutionary trait of not shying away from power and interest adjustments!"

Through public institution institutional reform, what we need to solve is the 'difficult point' of breaking through interest barriers; it is to wield the knife on the 'root of the problem,' with the surgical blade directly targeting long-standing institutional overlap and the issue of overstaffing, aiming to give the people a genuine sense of gain.

The Provincial Party Committee requires taking the people's support or opposition, approval or disapproval, happiness or unhappiness, acceptance or rejection as the fundamental standard for measuring the gains and losses of all work; what is being resolved is the 'pain point' of governmental function transformation.

All departments at all levels across the province must raise their political stance, deeply recognize the major significance of deepening public institution reform, enhance political sensitivity, improve political capability, and complete the reform tasks with high quality.

As of now, the reform of provincial-level departments has entered the 'mopping-up' stage, while all cities and counties have fully launched reform. Compared to them, Yingjun City's actions are somewhat slow; the plan hasn't been approved, and no mobilization meeting has been held, which can be said to be dragging the province backward. We must strongly shoulder political responsibility, dare to tackle tough problems, push forward reform by tightly tracking deadlines, rigorously grasping key links, reversing the schedule, catching up head-on and striving forward, and fully implementing the Provincial Party Committee's deployment requirements without compromise.

Before Peng Yongchang could explain, Tang Bing spoke with a stern expression: "The new journey calls for new actions; we must further promote the spirit of opening roads when encountering mountains and building bridges when meeting water, with the courage to venture and act, and the responsibility for self-renewal, to make institutional setup more scientific, functions more optimized, responsibilities more coordinated, supervision and management more powerful, operations more efficient, and continually open new horizons for Huayuan's undertakings!"

Yingjun City must strengthen organizational leadership, take responsibility and fulfill duties, work together with unity, and form a strong synergy to promote reform. Responsibility must be implemented: the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government should keep responsibility in mind, shoulder it, and grasp it in hand; the party secretaries at the municipal and county levels should treat promoting reform as a 'top leader' project, act as good 'construction team leaders,' consciously fulfill their primary responsibility; they must uphold benchmarking, strengthen supervision and inspection, and ensure that reform tasks are implemented in accordance with deadlines.

After the symposium ended, Secretary Tang Bing directly returned to the Provincial Party Committee, instructing Lu Fan that if Yingjun City remains unchanged ("old skin unchanged"), the Municipal Organization Department Director Yu Weihong could be adjusted, as he is the direct person responsible for the reform work.

The next morning, Yingjun City Municipal Party Secretary Peng Yongchang personally brought the 'Reform Plan' to the Provincial Organization Department to find Lu Fan for approval.

As the saying goes, 'not reciprocating is impolite.' Recently, Yingjun City has been indifferent to the Organization Department; even when Office Director Tan Yiqiao personally requested the 'Plan,' they kept making excuses, which made Lu Fan very annoyed.

After meeting, Peng Yongchang smiled and said: "After the Secretary's criticism yesterday, I personally oversaw it and, working through the night, formulated the 'Yingjun City Public Institution Institutional Reform Implementation Plan'; please, Director, review it. Once approved, we will immediately organize its implementation."

Lu Fan received the plan, examined it carefully, and after a while said: "Comrade Yongchang, the Secretary has emphasized many times that we must adhere to the overall requirement of 'one principle, one standard, one set of methods' to advance reform, focusing on solving the 'small, scattered, and weak' of public institutions, requiring administrative types to be wholly abolished and all public institutions with 16 or fewer staff to be eliminated; we cannot make concessions, haggle, or seek workarounds!"

Yingjun City is the 'main show' of the province's institutional reform; if your side does not reform thoroughly, Huayuan's reform effectiveness will inevitably be greatly diminished, and I cannot answer to the Provincial Party Committee!

Peng Yongchang explained: "Yingjun City's situation is indeed special; this reform has encountered unprecedented challenges, with difficulty and complexity far exceeding people's expectations; the tasks of staffing, titles, wages, and personnel placement are arduous, requiring gradual, steady progression, time to digest and soothe emotions; please, Director, understand and give support!"

Lu Fan replied calmly: "You also know, we are all 'doers'; the leadership has already set the general direction, and I truly lack the ability to set an example. Why not let the Secretary review it? As long as the Secretary agrees, I have no problem. Yongchang, I suggest you have a private talk with the Secretary; some things are easier to say in private."