THE TRANSFER OF TWO programs for low-income families from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Social Services seems so logical and obvious as to hardly be worth mention: The programs use primarily federal money to provide child care vouchers and other services for the low-income and foster families served by DSS. Having DSS hand out the money means less duplication, and more chances of making sure errors don’t occur, and so the move is expected to save about $2 million a year.

Here’s what makes it notable: There was no public bickering between the two agencies over which could do the job better. No turf-protective resistance to the change over fears that losing the program, and its 75 employees, would somehow diminish the empire at Health and Human Services. No resistance at DSS to having to spend some extra money up front to bring the cash-strapped program up to full funding.

It’s easy to imagine how much different this could have been. It’s easy to imagine the donor agency running to its legislative protectors and urging them to sabotage the move. Easy to imagine the receiving agency insisting that extra money come with the deal. In fact, the only thing hard to imagine in most agencies is that such a proposal would have ever even made it past the idea stage, because neither agency would see itself as clearly benefiting. And why would you take on the task of putting together a proposal and convincing people to support it if there’s nothing in it for you?

Two things made this happen. First, the directors of the two agencies both work for the governor, rather than an independent board, and so they take their direction from him. Second, the governor in question has decided that it’s important to look out for what’s best for the entire government, and those it serves, not for individual agencies. And he has made it clear to his Cabinet directors that he expects the same of them.

That is one of the major advantages to Cabinet government — an advantage that previous governors, well-schooled in our state’s status quo approach to running government, did not take advantage of. In many ways, Gov. Mark Sanford is the first person who has taken on the task of trying to look holistically at state government and come up with the best way to make it work, without regard to what’s best for this agency or that, without regard to the way things have always been done. But it’s difficult to come up with those ideas when the folks in charge of the agencies aren’t helping you. And there’s no incentive for folks in most agencies to help the governor find ways to change their jobs.

There is no guarantee that any governor would find a large number of changes that could save money and make government work better if most state agencies were under his control. But there is all but a guarantee that we won’t find sensible changes if we continue doing things the way we’re doing them. Yes, it is possible for agency directors, on their own, to come up with such proposals, work out agreements and take them to the Legislature for approval; but that simply doesn’t happen. It’s also possible for the Legislature to find opportunities and, whether the affected agencies like it or not, approve them; that doesn’t happen either. Our best bet for finding and implementing smart changes to make our government do a better job of delivering those services we want it to deliver is by allowing the governor to run the executive branch of government.