Posted on Mon, Dec. 04, 2006

email this

print this

reprint or license this

Sanford pushing to streamline agencies

Governor says his plan will save state $19 million per year

By JOHN O’CONNOR

johnoconnor@thestate.com

Gov. Mark Sanford’s plans to reshape state government might make agencies more accountable but are unlikely to significantly cut the cost of state government, according to veterans of the state’s last attempt at restructuring.

Sanford has made remodeling government — consolidating agencies within the executive branch and reducing the number of elected officials — the central issue of his second term. Next month, he will present to lawmakers a proposal he says will save the state $19 million a year.

Experts said while restructuring — begun in the 1990s under former Gov. Carroll Campbell — accomplished many goals, few jobs were eliminated.

“Were there cost savings? We don’t know,” said John Kresslein, a researcher at the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Public Service and Policy Research and an analyst for the now-disbanded South Carolina Commission on Government Restructuring. “We didn’t see much evidence. ... Anyone who wants to accomplish that has some explaining to do.”

Sanford says the changes he is proposing would make more agencies directly accountable to him, eliminate duplication and provide better service for taxpayers’ money. Some of the plan requires voter approval.

“At a gut level, (residents) understand there is something different about the way we operate in South Carolina,” Sanford said. “All we’re asking for is allowing the voters to vote.”

His plan consists of four bills. They would:

• Reorganize the Department of Transportation, possibly making its director a Cabinet appointee, named by the governor

• Amend the state constitution to make some of the nine statewide elected officials, including state treasurer or schools chief, appointees of the governor

• Reorganize the state’s health care agencies to streamline services and responsibility

• Move some of the administrative duties of the State Budget and Control Board into a new Department of Administration, controlled by the governor

Sanford’s plan comes at the same time that a recent audit — saying the Transportation Department misspent millions of dollars — already has lawmakers discussing reforms.

However, Kresslein warns that past restructuring efforts were only partially successful. Changes spurred by Campbell produced more accountability and tighter organization, but the state was less successful in saving money, Kresslein said.

Some agencies that moved into the governor’s Cabinet more than a decade ago still need improvement.

“We still have some of the same problems,” Kresslein said. “We’re going to be faced with the same problems in a post-restructuring environment that we faced before. ... Restructuring is seen as a panacea, and we use it to ignore the real problem.”

For example, Sanford attributed troubles in the state Department of Social Services, documented in an audit earlier this year, to years of budget and staff cuts. That agency already is in the governor’s Cabinet.

Another USC researcher and veteran of the Campbell restructuring, Richard D. Young, said Sanford’s budget process has established a model of how government should work. Every year, the governor’s staff and Cabinet agencies review and prioritize programs before they are added to the executive budget.

“That provides him evidence, documentation, testimony,” Young said. “You can’t ask for much more than that.”

However, the GOP-controlled Legislature has ignored many of fellow Republican Sanford’s budget proposals.

The Legislature would have to approve any of Sanford’s restructuring proposals, and lawmakers said they are unsure how much they should tackle this year.

“Restructuring is such a vague term,” said House Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Berkeley. “There is a sense that we need to streamline government.”

The House has tried to take on some of the proposed changes before, passing a bill that would make the education superintendent and agriculture commissioner appointed positions.

Likewise, Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, sponsored a series of bills that languished. McConnell will resurrect those bills, which would have voters choose which statewide offices are elected or appointed, for 2007.

Some senators already say they are concerned about giving Sanford direct control of the state Transportation Department.

Lawmakers, Merrill said, might be open to a bill tackling fewer issues. House Judiciary chairman Jim Harrison, R-Richland, agreed.

Harrison’s committee likely would handle portions of any restructuring plan. “The broader your bill, the easier it is to build opposition,” he said.

Reach O’Connor at (803) 771-8358.