Plan Would Consolidate California Agencies
By JOHN M. BRODER, NY TIMES, August 4, 2004

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 3 - A government efficiency panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed closing or consolidating hundreds of state boards and agencies, including the independent California Air Resources Board, which has led the nation in air pollution standards for automobiles and consumer products for decades.

The California Performance Review submitted its 2,500-page report to the governor on Tuesday after months of work by 275 staff members. If all of its 1,200 recommendations are adopted, officials said, the state could eliminate thousands of jobs and save as much as $32 billion over the next five years.

But its recommendations, some of which had been leaked in recent days, have become a source of consternation among lawmakers, bureaucrats and lobbyists. Senior legislators said many of the more sweeping ideas, particularly in the areas of the environment, education and contracting, were unlikely to be adopted.

Officials responsible for the study said that the state government, which has an annual budget of $105 billion, was a mess of inefficiency, overlapping authority and wasteful spending, and that it needed to be streamlined.

"We are facing some monumental problems in the state, no surprise there," Chon Gutierrez, an executive director of the review, said. "But the consequences of not doing something now to mend the structural disrepair in California government are frightening."

The panel held hearings largely in private but plans five more to seek public comment over the next several months. Most of its recommendations require legislative approval.

The group proposed a sweeping reorganization that would combine 11 agencies and more than 75 departments into 11 cabinet-style departments answering to the governor.

Some characterized the proposed centralization of decision-making as a power grab by the executive branch and an effort to diminish the authority and access of the Legislature and the public. A panel spokesman, Robert Martinez, denied that was the group's intent.

The recommendations for saving money include combining purchasing among departments, barring children younger than 5 from kindergarten, consolidating some 30 law enforcement agencies into one department, and creating an Infrastructure Department to supervise transportation, water, housing and energy programs. The report also recommends shifting to a two-year budget cycle from the current annual process and creating an Office of Management and Budget to replace the several agencies now responsible for the state's finances.

The proposals on the environment have raised concern. The plan would eliminate not only the Air Resources Board, but also the Water Resources Control Board and several others moving their work to a new Department of Environmental Protection.

Bill Magavern, senior legislative representative for the Sierra Club of California, said the air and water boards had made the state a national leader in air and water quality. The air board had been the first in the nation to require catalytic converters to reduce auto pollution, Mr. Magavern said. The board is working on standards for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"The air board is probably California's most effective environmental agency," Mr. Magavern said. "The air board has been the national leader in air-quality safeguards and definitely has been the leading edge for the entire country."

He also said that the independent panels were a crucial source of public participation in government decisions and that the Sierra Club and other environmental groups would vigorously oppose their elimination.

The reorganization panel found that responsibility for environmental compliance was split among a hodgepodge of commissions and agencies, including the air and water boards. Bringing them under a single department would mean both cost savings and greater accountability, said Chris Reynolds, a staff member at the performance review.

Mr. Reynolds said the proposed consolidation of environmental programs in the current fiscal year would save $2.2 million, of a total budget for the environment of more than $5 billion. Savings in future years would be higher but still modest in relation to overall spending.

The performance review panel duplicated the work of several previous California studies and was in some respects modeled on the National Performance Review overseen by Vice President Al Gore in 1993 and 1994.

Bruce E. Cain, director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said that much of the performance review addressed many of the same issues a constitutional review panel did a decade ago. Most of that group's work was ignored and forgotten because of opposition from elected officials and interest groups. Mr. Cain said the current report was likely to meet the same fate.

"The most controversial things will be held up by the Legislature," he said, "and the least controversial changes won't make that big a difference."