THERE WEREN’T ANY big new ideas — or even any big surprises — in the report issued last week that calls for consolidating a jumbled maze of state agencies and giving the governor the authority to coordinate their activities. Indeed, even many of the specific savings initiatives in the 198-page report compiled by Gov. Mark Sanford’s Commission on Management, Accountability and Performance mirrored countless reports and audits that we’ve seen over the years.

It is that redundancy that gives this latest report its strength and urgency.

On at least 14 occasions in the last century, this state has called on academics or professional management consultants to examine the structure of state government and recommend ways to make it better serve the public. This time, more than 300 business leaders, state employees and just ordinary citizens did the study.

These South Carolinians concluded, like the professionals before them, that the status quo is unacceptable. They concluded that we have too many separate state agencies, a problem that is compounded by the fact that many of them operate as independent fiefdoms; that we need fewer agencies and clearer lines of authority; that the governor should have control of nearly all agencies.

These South Carolinians found hundreds of ways to save money by more efficiently handling administrative functions from human resources and procurement to transportation and information technology. Some changes could be made within the current framework. But many demand more centralized decision-making and a more manageable number of agencies; after all, that’s how you get the economies of scale that an entity as large as state government should get, but doesn’t.

If we don’t make these changes now, in 10 years we’ll have another study that will reach the same conclusions. And we will have lost another 10 years when we could have been moving forward, rather than wallowing in our failures. As the report notes: “After compiling current data and reviewing information from studies in years past, the committee concluded that many of today’s problems exist because older studies’ recommendations have not been implemented.”

The evidence is clear. The case has been made. After 15 studies, the question can no longer be, “Why should we do this?” The burden is on those who resist these logical and essential changes to explain “Why not?”

The critics will not melt away. The system always pushes back. Day in and day out, the most powerful force at the State House — indeed, in our state — is inertia; the most powerful constituency, the status quo.

And where has that gotten us? At the bottom in those categories where we want to be at the top, and at the top of those categories where we want to be at the bottom, from nation-leading rates of highway death and domestic violence and infant mortality to bottom-scraping rankings in education and income. “‘Why reform state government?’” the report asks. “Vital statistics, we feel, give us cause to pursue serious changes.”

Are these the perfect answers? Perhaps not. But it’s hard to believe that all the academics and professional management consultants and now business leaders, state employees and ordinary citizens got it completely wrong. Does any one really believe that if we keep doing the same things we’ve always done, we’re going to get better results than we’ve always gotten? Isn’t that the definition of insanity?