The Associated Press
(First published Sunday)
OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire has set an ambitious government reform agenda — to consolidate 21 state agencies down to nine.
But most of her proposals have faced tough opposition from lawmakers.
Bills based on her plans have been introduced to consolidate state functions for natural resources — including parks and Fish and Wildlife — education, civil rights and back-office services.
Gregoire estimated the plans could save the state about $22 million over two years, but as the bills stand halfway through the legislative session the savings would likely be more like $15 million for the next biennium.
The state’s budget shortfall for the next two-year cycle is about $4.6 billion.
“We’re pushing these still,” said Jim Justin, the governor’s legislative director, referring to Gregoire’s proposals.
“I think that as the Legislature grapples with the tough budget decisions they will have over the next couple of months, they’ll look closer at these ideas, too.”
When she proposed her biennial budget, the governor included a plan for merging natural-resource agencies, setting up an Office of Civil Rights and combining back-office agencies including information technology, printing and others.
Later, she added a new education department to oversee preschool- through college-level instruction to the list.
Because the consolidation bills are budget-related, they will get more time for consideration in the Legislature than policy bills, which must get a floor vote in their chamber of origin by the end of Monday in order to move forward.
The education department plan has gotten a mixed review from lawmakers.
“We have to get serious about reform,” Gregoire said Wednesday, as she urged lawmakers to act on the proposal.
“Today we have eight education agencies and 14 major strategic plans — plenty of cracks for our kids to fall through, and they do.”
The House passed House Bill 1849, an alternative to the governor’s proposal by Rep. Kathy Haigh, in a 64-32 vote Wednesday.
The bill would set up a 17-member education council to study education governance and submit a report to the Legislature.
Gregoire’s plan to merge the state’s natural-resource agencies also has drawn criticism, especially from hunters and fishermen who opposed the part of the measure that would take away authority from the Fish and Wildlife Commission and give it to the governor.
After having a public hearing in February, legislators changed the governor’s request bill, Senate Bill 5669, to take some agencies out of the merger and give rule-making authority back to the commission.
The most recent version of the bill would consolidate the Fish and Wildlife Department, the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Recreation and Conservation Office and the Department of Natural Resources law enforcement into a new Department of Fish, Wildlife and Recreation.
Ed Owens, a lobbyist for hunting and fishing groups in the state, said he doubted the bill would make it through the House based on discussions he’d had with lawmakers, adding that his clients had “opinions all over the map” on the current version.
The governor’s other two proposals — consolidating several minority-affairs agencies into a new state Office of Civil Rights and merging the General Administration Department, the state printer and parts of other state agencies into a new Department of Enterprise Services — are being considered in legislative committees.
The Department of Enterprise Services bill, House Bill 1720, is awaiting a vote in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Although it has drawn less attention than the other ideas, it promises to save the most money.
According to the bill’s fiscal note, it would save about $11 million over the 2011-13 biennium.
One point of controversy over the proposal is whether the state printer should be eliminated.
Senate Bill 5523, which the Rules Committee put on the Senate Floor calendar Wednesday, would do away with the printer and require state government to rely on the private sector for printing services.
The Office of Civil Rights bill, Senate Bill 5557, had a February committee hearing in the Senate Government Operations, Tribal Relations and Elections Committee.
During the hearing, representatives from some minority groups, including the Latino Civic Alliance, the National Association of Hispanic Workers and the King County Asian Pacific Islander Coalition, argued that the proposal could create another layer of bureaucracy that would make state government less accessible to ethnic groups.
