One Government Program that Might be Worth Extending | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Mitch Kokai, who is senior political analyst for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Efficiency Measure Targeting Secretary Of State's Office Should Be Expanded To Include All Of State Government

    It's often good news to learn that a government body is slated to do its work and then go away. But a bill recently signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper offers one example of a temporary government group that might offer more benefits if it's made permanent.

    It's called the Joint Legislative Study Commission on Efficiency and Cost-Savings in State Government. It's included in Senate Bill 78, which sailed through the N.C. House with a bipartisan 109-2 vote on the last full day of this year's regular legislative session. Senators accepted the House's version of the bill, 32-8, with three Democrats joining the Republican majority, roughly 90 minutes before the Senate finished its business and headed home.

    The new commission will focus solely on the secretary of state's department. Lawmakers expect the new group to produce an interim report next year plus a final report and any proposed legislation by the start of the 2019 legislative session. Then the commission "shall terminate."

    That's too bad. The approach the group will take to its examination of a single Council of State department makes sense for a review of agencies throughout state government.

    Five senators and five representatives will use a "zero-based budgeting review process to study whether there are obsolete programs, cost-reduction opportunities, or any cases where existing funds can be redirected to meet new and changing demands for public services."

    S.B. 78 offers specifics about how the 10 lawmakers will approach their task. Within the selected department, they will look at specific "decision units." These could include a particular program or a group of services with common objectives.

    For each decision unit, the department will prepare four "decision packages." These will spell out potential benefits or adverse impacts of keeping the status quo, increasing the current level of service, reducing spending for the service by a set percentage or dollar amount, or cutting the service to the bare minimum level required by law.

    Each decision package also requires a description of alternative ways to provide services. The law spells out options: "shedding one or more services and relying upon the free market for delivery, delegation to another level of government, using Requests for Information or competitive selection to outsource to private for‑profit or nonprofit organizations, in whole or in part, including franchising, assisting or providing incubator arrangements for current State employees to form non‑State organizations to compete for outsourcing opportunities, or through methods used by other states or nations."

    The review then requires decision packages to be ranked against each other with no ties.

    When the House originally attached this proposal to S.B. 78, the efficiency and cost-savings commission was slated to address "state government," starting with the secretary of state's office. Given the tight deadline, it makes sense that lawmakers narrowed their focus over the next 18 months to a single department.

    But much of "state government" could stand to undergo the type of review that Secretary of State Elaine Marshall's single department is slated to face. Perhaps lawmakers can revisit the legislation and extend the commission's work after they've seen results from the first review.

    The new commission represents just one way in which legislators are focusing increased attention on potential long-term cost savings. John Locke Foundation Senior Fellow Joseph Coletti has identified at least three provisions in the new state budget that focus on similar themes.

    One creates a new joint legislative task force targeting education finance reform. A second aims to improve accountability reporting and recommend potential cost savings in the state Department of Administration. A third designates $100,000 for the Office of State Budget and Management to help implement a cost-benefit analysis model for policy and budget decisions.

    As lawmakers continue to emphasize prudent levels of government spending growth, efficient use of current resources becomes increasingly important.

    So while obsolete programs disappear and taxpayer money moves from less-effective programs to those producing more bang for the buck, a now-temporary task force might make a good permanent addition to state government.