Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher wasted no time putting his administration on a Slim-Fast plan, signing an executive order last week that cut the number of cabinets from 14 to eight.

The cabinets, as they are known in Kentucky, are the bureaucracies in charge of various aspects of the state government. Fletcher's cabinets will cover the essentials: Education, Transportation, Finance and Administration, Health and Family Services, Justice and Public Safety, Environmental and Public Protection, Economic Development and Commerce.

But like so many diets that promise to reduce your waistline by two sizes in time for swimsuit season, this one will fail if the new governor does not stick to it.

The offices that no longer have cabinet rank have, for the most part, been absorbed into other areas of the state government. That means, as the governor noted last week, the cuts won't save the state any money, at least not immediately. In fact, they really weren't cuts at all, just name changes on a few doors down in Frankfort.

What Fletcher is promising, and what the people of Kentucky must hold him to, is that this reorganization sets the government up for future savings. We noted in this space last week that the governor plans to implement a zero-based budgeting system. That means justifying every dollar spent by every department, not just arguing over the size of an annual, and often automatic, increase.

Kentucky faces a budget shortfall of anywhere from $262 million to $304 million in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. Former Gov. Paul Patton estimated the shortfall for fiscal year 2004-05 could be as high as $710 million if spending and revenues remain at current levels.

With numbers like that, Fletcher and his new administration must count every budget calorie and can't allow any fat to remain in the state's diet.