Biting Off Bureaucracy

Does California really need the advisory board to the Bureau of Home Furnishing, if it still exists? Is there a legitimate role for the Strawberry Processing Council when there’s also a California Strawberry Council? The Celery Research Advisory Board?

The state has more than 400 boards, commissions, authorities and councils in addition to some 150 regular state agencies and departments. The boards and commissions--most of them advisory only--consist of nearly 4,000 members, most of them appointed by the governor.

State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) wants to establish a commission to study the labyrinth of state government and report back in 2005 with a plan for “realigning or closing outdated or ineffective and inefficient governmental agencies, bureaucracies, boards and commissions.”

The report would go to the governor and Legislature for acceptance or rejection without amendment. McClintock got the idea from the federal commission formed to recommend the closing of surplus military bases around the country.

As with Congress and individual bases, state legislators protect their favorite agencies from elimination or consolidation. Putting all the bad eggs in one basket dissipates the political shield.

It’s a good idea. The Legislature should pass the measure and send it to Gov. Gray Davis for his signature. The bill, SB 1428, passed the Senate this week by a vote of 33 to 1.

But McClintock’s proposed eight-member commission should do more than just look for places to save a buck. It should also look for ways that government can serve the public better. A commission must not just consider the Dry Bean and Avocado advisory boards but major agencies like the duplicative and overlapping Department of Personnel Management and the State Personnel Board.

This is not the first attempt to streamline government. California long has had its Little Hoover Commission, which seeks efficiency and economy, and has had various sunset laws to end programs and agencies, with scant success. The Legislature’s Joint Legislative Sunset Review Committee has done valuable work. But the base-closure approach might work where others have failed because lawmakers wouldn’t have to take the blame for cutting programs dear to special interests.

One other point: McClintock is so stingy with the public’s tax money he’s proposing to limit the commission to $250,000 in the first year and $500,000 over its lifetime of two to three years. That’s about enough for an office, an executive director and a few low-paid aides. It may take a bigger bureaucracy than that to really attack the bureaucracy.