The board's 5-0 vote was a clear signal that the portion of the governor's restructuring proposal requiring legislative help won't face an easy road. That was doubly evident Tuesday when a House subcommittee rejected the DHEC breakup.

The governor's plan would have the environmental side of the agency aligned with other environmental departments, and the health component join other health and human services agencies. It is designed to reduce the overlapping areas of authority that result in duplication and higher costs.

While the DHEC board voted overwhelmingly to reject the restructuring plan, it is notable that its chairman, Elizabeth Hagood, strongly supports it. (Her support wasn't apparent in the board vote because, as chairman, Mrs. Hagood only votes in the case of a tie.) She was the sole Sanford appointee present at the recent board meeting.

A former director of the Lowcountry Open Land Trust and chairman of the governor's Quality of Life Task Force, Mrs. Hagood recently told a legislative panel that the restructuring plan for DHEC would provide for "cost-cutting, efficiency and accountability." Incidentally, she prefaced her comments by stating that she was speaking for herself and not the agency or its board.

Restructuring, she said, would allow for "staff and capital resources to be shared across environmental permitting, research, monitoring, law enforcement, and other activities which require personnel, vehicles, and offices in the field." Additionally, it would improve coordination of state land and resource management. And putting agencies under the governor would encourage operational efficiencies and agency accountability, she said.

Having separate boards that deal with the environment and health issues, respectively, would promote a higher level of expertise in two complex fields, she said. "Why? Because it would narrow the scope of issues the board would be responsible for. It's simple math: One highly complicated subject is much easier to master than two."

The DHEC board's rejection of the restructuring plan shows the extent to which it is being viewed as a turf issue. The proposal is the most ambitious in more than a decade, and, not unexpectedly, isn't being greeted with enthusiasm by many who recognize it will mean a loss of their authority.

Legislators shouldn't be reluctant to take a counter view when the improved operation of state agencies and a higher return on tax dollars are at stake. When changes will offer more accountability and cost savings, the Legislature should be prepared to make them. Certainly agency opposition is no excuse.