COLUMBIA - Gov. Mark Sanford's task force on government restructuring says that South Carolina should move most of its constitutional officers into the governor's cabinet, eliminate the secretary of state but leave the attorney general an independent elected official.

The panel also recommends the state should consolidate some agencies, give more taxing authority to county government and expand campaign finance disclosure laws.

Lawmakers who got their first whiff of the recommendations Tuesday said they will hold their opinions until they see what Sanford proposes tonight in his first State of the State address. In general, key players say no restructuring will get through the Legislature unless it saves money, makes government more efficient and - perhaps most importantly to lawmakers - doesn't give the governor more power than the General Assembly.

Sanford made government restructuring a major theme of last year's campaign, saying that the existing system dilutes executive power to the point of making the governor ineffective in some areas. The task force report backs up that position, noting that state services suffer to the point of being "unresponsive to citizens' needs" from a lack of coordination between the governor's office and elected constitutional officers

The long state ballot in South Carolina, the report said, is an anomaly: Few, if any, states elect their adjutant general or commissioner of agriculture, for example.

Sanford appeared briefly at a press conference on the report to thank committee members. The new governor has refused to divulge any piece of his legislative agenda before his State of the State address but, as expected, hinted that some of these measures will be on his agenda.

"I think there isn't anything more significant we could do than deal with the structure of state government," Sanford said.

Lawmakers so far have been more receptive to Sanford's restructuring ideas than many observers expected. But almost every legislator who has expressed any interest in the plan hopes that it will save money, an important consideration given a budget shortfall that could exceed $500 million. There was no estimate of how much money these proposals would save state government.

"He's got a chance if what he proposes results in a reduction in the cost and size of government," Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell said. "That's going to be the key point. I don't see the General Assembly doing anything without seeing some savings or efficiencies."

House Speaker David Wilkins said lawmakers are willing to hear Sanford out, particularly since he ran successfully on the restructuring issue in his campaign.

"If in the State of the State he proposes it, we'll look at it," Wilkins said. "Then we'll see where we can go forward. How much happens depends on what he proposes."

In general, many lawmakers support moving the commissioner of agriculture and superintendent of education into the governor's cabinet. Somewhat fewer would consider moving the adjutant general.

Also, some legislators have said they would vote to eliminate the secretary of state position and spread the duties of that office among other agencies. But no lawmakers have suggested the attorney general should be anything but an independently elected official.

The treasurer and comptroller general fall into a different category. Those two officers sit, along with the governor and the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means chairmen, on the state Budget and Control Board. The board exerts a great deal of power over state finances and is authorized to make across-the-board cuts in times of a budget crisis. In December, it sliced $248 million from a budget suffering from a lack of revenue.

Lawmakers who were asked about the report agreed Tuesday that for any of the major restructuring changes to take place, the makeup, duties and powers of the Budget and Control Board would have to be redefined.

"The governor is not going to have three votes on that board," McConnell said Tuesday.

According to Tom Davis and Kevin Hall, the co-chairmen of the task force, there was a difference of opinion on the panel. Some thought having a treasurer separate from the governor helped maintain the state's "financial integrity." A majority of task force members believed the comptroller general, like the secretary of state, could be eliminated. That, too, would affect the makeup of the Budget and Control Board.

The panel also suggested that having the lieutenant governor run on the same ticket as the governor would allow for a smoother transition if there was a transfer of power. McConnell said that if the lieutenant governor became the right-hand man of the governor, the Senate would have to be restructured to maintain a separation of the executive and legislative branches. The lieutenant governor now serves as the presiding officer of the Senate.

As for the other areas of the task force's report, the Legislature may already be on the same path. On Tuesday, a House committee passed a campaign finance-reform bill that Wilkins says will likely pass the full House next week. The task force called for wider reporting requirements to make sure that any group or person paying for anything to help any campaign is reported. The House legislation is similar in scope and nature.

The task force also recommended reorganizing some state agencies, including merging all health and human services divisions and a creating a coordinated administrative department for information technology. The report called for a move to "zero-based" budgeting, in which state government would start from scratch each year in justifying its expenses rather than using the previous year's budget as a baseline to which funds are either added or subtracted.

The final section of the report dealt with empowering counties to make more decisions and raise revenues in ways other than property taxes. The panel suggested the Legislature should stop legislative delegations from making appointments to county boards, agencies and commissions. As of Tuesday evening, no line had formed for lawmakers seeking to sign on to that measure.

This is not the first attempt at restructuring state government. Panel members found 13 other sets of similar recommendations made by committees over the past 82 years. With that in mind, Davis said the task force wanted to make recommendations that were politically viable.

"We could have put together a pie-in-the-sky, think-tank piece or something that could get done," Davis said. "We tried to do the latter."

RESULTS OF STUDY

The Task Force on Government Restructuring and Campaign Finance Reform released the results of its month-long study Tuesday. Among the key points:

EXECUTIVE BRANCH

-- Change the following constitutional offices from statewide-elected offices to "cabinet-type" agencies headed by individuals appointed by the governor (and approved with the advice and consent of the state Senate): the adjutant general, the education superintendent and the commissioner of agriculture.

-- Eliminate the offices of the secretary of state and comptroller general.

-- Consider having the lieutenant governor run on the same ticket as the governor.

-- Keep the attorney general as an independent, statewide-elected constitutional officer.

-- Consider making treasurer a position appointed by the governor.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

-- Require political parties and legislative caucuses to disclose any gift in excess of $500 and make itemized disclosures of contributions and expenditures.

-- Eliminate the $500 cap on civil penalties for failure to file disclosure reports.

-- Require electronic filing of finance disclosure forms and make them available online in a searchable format.

-- Stop lobbyists from "deregistering" for portions of a calendar year.

AGENCY OPERATIONS

-- Reorganize the executive branch into a set number of cabinet departments, perhaps 15.

-- Make all health and human services agencies one cabinet department to ensure better coordination. Includes moving health services units of DHEC to Health and Human Services.

-- Strengthen the Commission on Higher Education, making it a governing body rather than a coordinating body. Task force members said it was an idea similar to a board of regents system, but the panel did not go so far as to recommend that structure.

-- Reform budgeting process of established agency programs applying "zero-based" budget principles.

HOME RULE

-- Give counties the power to eliminate special-purpose districts.

-- Diversify local government revenue-raising options to reduce pressure on property taxes.

-- Consolidate smaller school districts to reduce administrative costs, produce efficiencies of scale and promote better management of resources.

-- End the legislative delegation's role in approving appointments to boards, agencies and commissions that provide services of vital interest to local governments.