Schwarzenegger Plan To Overhaul State Government Appears Stalled
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R) plan to restructure the state government, including 13 entities in the Health and Human Services Agency, was supposed to be submitted to the Legislature before the end of the legislative session, but it appears to "be on hold until next year," the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Gledhill, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/10). The plan would eliminate entire departments and consolidate others, as well as remove up to 200 state boards and commissions and 1,500 political appointees. The California Performance Review, a group of about 265 state employees from various agencies, developed the reorganization plan. After it is completed, it must go the 13-member Little Hoover Commission -- a state oversight panel that is legally required to review the reorganization plan -- for one month before the Legislature considers it. The plan will be submitted to the Legislature under a special law that allows no amendments and requires lawmakers to approve or reject the plan within 60 days or it automatically would become law (California Healthline, 4/22). Although administration officials had considered releasing the completed plan April 30, Senate President Pro Tempore John Burton (D-San Francisco) said he would not consider the plan during the weeks surrounding budget negotiations. Billy Hamilton, co-director of the California Performance Review, said that the group "will continue its work by focusing on how the state spends its money and what processes can be put into place to make purchasing more efficient." According to the Chronicle, the plan is not intended to eliminate services, but rather to develop a more efficient process of delivering them. Burton said, "It sounds like they're eliminating departments, which do the specifics, and turning the function over to agencies, which are generalists. That doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense." However, Assembly member John Campbell (R-Irvine) said, "If you can cut bureaucracy rather than the programs or the services government provides, both Republicans and Democrats would rather see that" (Gledhill, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/10).
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