A Central Bank study published in the national newspaper La Nacion gives good news for taxpayers here. The Social Security health system (Caja) has led other agencies in improving financial conditions.

The Caja, last year teetering on the brink of disaster until it was bailed out by a special government grant, has apparently stabilized its finances this year through a combination of cutting bureaucratic waste and more aggressive collections.

That wasn’t the only good news. The RECOPE refinery also slashed its deficit.

The Bank took into account six agencies in its study: the Caja, which administers the universal health care system, the state-run RECOPE refinery, the National Production Council (CNP), the ICE power company, the Social Protection Board that manages the national lottery and AyA, the water and sewer system.

Central Bank economic division director Roger Madrigal points to a considerable improvement in the Caja. Income is up a healthy 17% while expenses have climbed only 11%.

The income is easy to explain–the institution which runs hospital and clinics throughout the country has gone after deadbeats who have fallen behind in their contributions. (Traditionally, the worst are professional soccer teams and, ironically, government agencies.)

Caja financial director Gustavo Picado says his agency has been especially careful about selecting only the most important new personnel, which were held to 400 during 2012.

Other improvements have been to hold salaries to increments tied closely to cost of living increases, optimizing resources and reactivating only those vacant posts that impact on patient services.

(These may seem like what should have been normal operating procedures, but in the past decade the board of directors spent money as if they were running a welfare department, granting unwise wage increases and duplicating services that plunged the agency to the edge of bankruptcy.)

The government agencies studied by the bank passed from incurring a 65 billion colon deficit in the first eight months of 2011 to nearly as much of a budget surplus in the same period this year.

CNP chief William Barrantes told La Nacion that savings in his agency was attained mainly through cutting the payroll by 110 workers and raising sales– a clear example for a government with a lot of drones on the payroll.

Commentary: Although agencies stubbornly told the Ministry of Finance in 2011 that they could not economize, it is obvious that many have–government here is leaner if not meaner than ever before.

It is easy for bureaucrats to breezily tell the boss or the hierarchy that savings are impossible, since they are seldom (if ever) fired for incompetence. But incompetence in the Caja in past years has spread downward from the top.

We hope that surpluses will not cause agency heads to grow giddy. Bureaucrats seem to find such things cause them to go crazy, like an alcoholic set loose in a liquor factory.