FOLKS IN THE governor’s office were clearly frustrated by last week’s 90-minute budget hearing with the Budget and Control Board, which may well be the linchpin to substantive cost-savings and reorganization of state government. But the very answers and non-answers that frustrated them, the very absence of the mutual brain-storming session Gov. Mark Sanford kept asking for, actually served as the best evidence there is for why this hybrid agency of questionable constitutionality must be changed.

When Mr. Sanford asked various officials with the sprawling agency what they could stop doing in order to save money, a few offered ways they could improve the process of doing the things they do — an important step. But nothing about which of their multiplicity of tasks and services could be dropped.

After a few minutes, Mr. Sanford asked more directly: What about all the things the Legislature has written laws requiring you to do? Which of those things should we drop?

One person asked if he could answer in writing later. The rest of the dozen suits exchanged glances, but remained silent.

The silence was extraordinary when you consider what all the 1,300-employee agency does. It operates state government’s health insurance, pension and insurance plans, provides budgeting expertise to lawmakers, oversees information technology and human resources, operates the state motor pool, maintains government buildings and grounds, promotes energy efficiency, makes water and sewer loans to local governments — and the list goes on. While most of the state’s 100 or so agencies do some of this themselves, the Budget and Control Board gets nearly all of its $185 million budget from fees it charges those other agencies to oversee the purely administrative functions of government — functions a governor needs to have control over if he is to coordinate services and improve efficiency in that government.

The problem isn’t that the agency’s director is a dinosaur. When Frank Fusco served as chief of staff for the House Ways and Means Committee, he played a crucial role in nudging legislative leaders to accept the idea of the first government restructuring effort — and did a great deal of work to help make that happen.

But he can’t escape his circumstances. He tried to explain away the silence on the “What shouldn’t you do?” question by telling the governor: “I could give you a list of a bunch of little things that we’re asked to do, but it’s not overwhelming.” In other words, we don’t need to make waves.

And that is the problem. Mr. Fusco can’t make waves, and he can’t be forthcoming when the governor asks such questions, because he works for a five-member board composed of the governor, the comptroller general, the state treasurer and the chairmen of the House and Senate budget-writing committees.

So of course Mr. Fusco declined to answer when Mr. Sanford kept pushing for an opinion on his proposal to transfer nearly all of the duties of the Budget and Control Board to a new Department of Administration that would be controlled entirely by the governor, cutting Mr. Fusco’s other bosses out of the loop.

“That’s going to come down to you and the Legislature working that out,” he said. “We don’t have a position on that.”

When pressed further, Mr. Fusco said: “I support my five bosses 100 percent.”

“That’s precisely the problem,” Mr. Sanford shot back. “You have that five-headed beast. In essence, nobody’s in charge.”

If it were simply a matter of Mr. Fusco feeling uncomfortable taking a public position on the governance of the agency he runs, this wouldn’t be such a huge deal. But that’s not it. This divided loyalty forces him and his agency to remain silent when the Legislature starts messing up programs it runs. Many state agencies get much more involved in lobbying than they should; but the whole concept of separation of powers — which this agency’s very existence thumbs its nose at — demands that agencies be able to act like administrative agencies, not wards of the legislative branch.

As Mr. Sanford pointed out, there was no public outcry, as you’d expect from most agencies in a similar situation, when the Legislature created a massive liability for the state retirement system, or when legislators raided the interest on the insurance reserve fund — a move that has forced the Budget and Control Board to increase its charges to all state agencies by nearly half.

Many legislators see Mr. Sanford’s efforts to take over the Budget and Control Board as an attempt to weaken the Legislature. That’s misreading. First, consider the origins of the idea: It’s straight out of a 1991 report co-authored by House Speaker David Wilkins.

Next, consider who’s pushing this. Mr. Sanford obviously wants to make this change, but what was clear in this meeting was that the most passionate advocate is Mr. Sanford’s chief of staff, Fred Carter. That’s significant because Mr. Carter used to be director of the Budget and Control Board. He understands how that agency operates better than anyone. And, unlike most other previous directors, he’s had a chance to see it from both sides, since he left that post in 1999 to become president of Francis Marion University.

“By virtue of the fact that you work for the two legislative budget chairmen in addition to the governor, it’s impossible for you to be able to stand up and blow the whistle and say, ‘Look what they’re doing,’” Mr. Carter told Mr. Fusco. The governance of “that multi-headed Budget and Control Board ... seems to silence board employees in their ability to speak up.”

As they aptly demonstrated.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.