Arnold Schwarzenegger thanks supporters, saying they pressed legislators to pass the state budget.
Posted on 07/30/2004 1:13:21 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - A plan to reorganize state government that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will release next week will propose eliminating one third of the state work force, hundreds of state boards and commissions while possibly saving $32 billion over the next five years.
Details in the 2,500-page report obtained Friday by The Associated Press also include contracting out government work to private contractors and requiring college and university students perform community service.
Months in the making, the sweeping report by the California Performance Review Board is already being called a power grab by critics and would mark the biggest reorganization of government since the 1960s. If approved by the Legislature, it would change everything from how soon children can enter kindergarten to greatly increasing the amount Californians could win in pooled lotteries with other states.
"California's spirit is alive and well, but in one vital area the state is ailing," the report states. "Once the envy of the nation, today our state government fails the people of California, and it fails the men and women who have given their careers to its service."
Officials involved in the reorganization effort declined comment Friday, and a Schwarzenegger aide also said the governor hasn't received a copy of the report yet, and didn't expect to see it until it was released on Tuesday.
Bill Leonard, a member of the Board of Equalization and a former legislator who was briefed on the report last month, said the report is "looking for less boards and commissions and a flatter organization chart, where the lines of responsibility would be clearer."
The report's reform proposals suggests a massive consolidation of state operations by combining 11 agencies and 66 departments into 11 major departments.
State finances would be controlled by a federal-style Office of Management and Budget, while a Public Safety and Homeland Security Department would oversee all law enforcement authorities who wear a badge, from fish and game investigations to the California Highway Patrol. The plan proposes creating a massive new infrastructure department to oversee water, energy, growth, housing and transportation issues in a state of 36 million people expected to reach 50 million by 2040.
Finally, it would create new super-departments to oversee the environment, commerce and consumer protection. Another would oversee health and welfare programs, now one of the state's biggest costs at $24.6 billion a year.
The report compiled in secret by 275 state employees, administration officials and consultants, has been delayed until Schwarzenegger won legislative approval for a $105 billion budget he expects to sign Saturday.
Schwarzenegger's California review resembles a National Performance Review started a decade ago by former President Clinton, who credited his panel with saving taxpayers billions of dollars by streamlining the federal bureaucracy and reinventing government operations.
In January, the governor promised to "blow up" the various boxes of state government, and he has also pitched a variety of government reform ideas, such as replacing the state's full-time Legislature with part-time lawmakers.
"The overall tone and tenor of the performance review is to put more power under the executive branch," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.
The report's release Tuesday will kick off a monthslong process that includes five statewide hearings before the commission's 21 members in August and September. Afterward, the state's government watchdog, the Little Hoover Commission, will make recommendations to Schwarzenegger and the Legislature.
Next year, Schwarzenegger will propose a final version of his plan to the Legislature.
A summary of the plans to reorganize public education includes granting broader powers to the governor's secretary of education. It also recommends the secretary head a new Department of Education and Workforce Preparation and "develop, implement and disseminate coherent policy" for public education through the community college level. The more powerful education secretary would be charged with ensuring that California's education programs are effective and with evaluating the state's labor market to guarantee a supply of skilled workers.
The plan differs slightly from a proposed master plan for education that's languishing in the Legislature, which would put the Department of Education under the secretary, instead of the elected superintendent. The superintendent, under the master plan, would have more of an inspector general role, ensuring the education programs implemented by the secretary, the board and the department were effective.
Both the master plan and the performance review put secretary in charge of policy, which both say makes the governor more accountable for public schools' successes and failures.
In turn, the state would abolish its elected state superintendent of public instruction, who oversees the state Department of Education, and its 11-member governor-appointed Board of Education which sets such state education policy as academic standards.
The report also suggests changing the state constitution to abolish 58 county school superintendents and boards of education.
All of this is easy posturing, critics said Friday.
"It's very facile and easily glib to say 'Combine 'em all and save something on personnel,'" said former assemblywoman and now Board of Equalization Chair Carole Migden.
Merging the board, Franchise Tax Board and Employment Development Department ignores the fact all "have separate functions, separate areas of expertise," Migden said. "It's a diversion of attention away from the real problem, which are rampant, runaway tax giveaways."
Fellow board member Leonard, a Republican, said he was excited about the plan.
"It would be so much easier if there was just one board and one phone number" for taxpayers to call, he said.
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On the Net: Visit the California Performance Review online at http://cpr.ca.gov/
Environment -- The plan to rebuild California government would eliminate the air pollution board that forced car makers to add catalytic converters three decades ago, a requirement that ranks along with removing lead from gasoline as one of the most effective clean-air innovations. Besides doing away with the Air Resources Board, the plan would drastically alter many of the agencies that have given the state a worldwide reputation as a trendsetter in environmental protection. In the process, it would eliminate an array of boards and commissions where decisions to regulate air and water pollution are made in public. Miguel Bustillo in the Los Angeles Times -- 7/31/04"
The nattering enviral nannies on the hill where I live are going bonkers about this and other cuts proposed by the governator.
This has them as upset as the Dump Davis signs that used to be on my Garbage Toters and the back of my OJ Simpson large Bronco.
You need to make this your tagline with a little word smithing to fit it in.
""I'LL BE BACH!!!" YOU OL BATTLEAXES... I'LL BE BACH!!!"
Apparently, a lot of the old battle axe lesbos and girlie it in the upper eschalons of the teachers racket knew that this was coming.
Many have opted for regular or early retirement in our area and submitted their letters requesting retirement this month. What is funny is many these are the same NEA nazis who were telling other thugs that if they could stop just one student per class from being home schooled per year, their budget problems would be solved.
A lot of formerly well off grant writers for left wing charities and other cry baby organizations are getting really depressed and potentially unemployed.
A friend who lives in Sacramento has been telling us that many highly paid lobbyists for these left wing charities have lost their jobs with the reduction in funds and grants. The survivors are needing Prozac as they await the axe hitting their liberal geek necks.
A friend saw in the Gay Chronicle last week, the number #1 group looking for jobs or laid off in the state are former government employees at all levels. When will we see a certain poster whining about these slugs being w/o a job.
Turn off your tvs and computers and open the windows. Then listen carefully. That moaning, whining and thrasing around sound is coming from liberals losing their paychecks and power.
Yes I did, for all the attention it got. I have a ping list over there now as well.
"TOS?" Does that stand for The Other Side?
That will cause a huge upsurge in un-employment. The lawsuits will be un-ending. Of course, if they send two or three million Illegals back home there may be some job openings for the out of work state employees.
I think it is Site not Side ;)
Though many groups were withholding public judgment until they read the report, others voiced concerns that some of the report's recommendations cloaked political goals beneath the veneers of frugality and efficiency. Jordan Rau in the Los Angeles Times -- 7/31/04
and we should not be suspicious ?
What will we do What will we do with no ARB??? :-}
I agree getting rid of these boards, agencies and commissions and consolidating functions is fine but what takes its place..
We won't slide into lawlessness and economic ruin now, will we if some or all of these recommendations are made?
IT is a centralization of power just as massive as were the educational reforms of the 60s/70s and beyond and from which Prop 13 was birthed.
Do we need more protections or less protections against a state and attitude that our gub'mint must be all things to all people and WE must pay for it whether we approve or not.
I'm on too many ping lists right now, but I'm on yours as well. Sometimes it is easy to miss the better articles. I'll look for it, when possible ;)
They'll hire their celebrity like they did Jack Lemon to lie their asses off like happened with Prop 98 and then again with Prop 226 that really helped sink my campaign for a second term in 1998. The word "attrophy" will come into such common usage that the public will begin to believe their mutha govamunt is about to keel over and die on the vine. They're so good at this sort of thing, ya know.
What should I say in the tagline? Something like: "I'LL BE BACH, YOU BICHIN OL BATTLEAXES... HASTA LA VISTA BABIES!!! YOUR TAXPAYER TEAT'S GONNA BE DRIED UP!!!"
some snips
Consolidation of agencies worries environmentalists
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The new agency would result in dozens of well-known boards and commissions being eliminated, including the state Air Resources Board, which sets smog rules for cars and industrial sources, and the State Water Resources Control Board, which regulates water pollution. Both were created in 1967 under Gov. Ronald Reagan. The plan would not change the California Coastal Commission.
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The reorganization proposes creating a new Department of Environmental Protection, with divisions for air quality, water quality, pollution prevention, toxic cleanup and pesticide regulation.
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Finally, in an effort to handle California's staggering population growth, about 600,000 people a year, it would create a Department of Infrastructure to coordinate new highways, power plants and water systems. Gone would be Caltrans, the Department of Water Resources, the California Energy Commission and the High-Speed Rail Authority....
BUT NOT 5 dollar bridge tolls or an open public spigot for benefits for illegals. ;-)
I think I need a nap!
Thanks for the link.
I saw that..
And that should somehow scare all the same folks that were told a Recall of Gray Davi$ was dooomed and look at what could happen.. We could end up with another big spender in the Gub's office in place of Gray.
Well, now we know. Pig in a poke salute.
We should just skip the legislature now and in perpetuity and just put it on the ballot and let the voters do the job our legislators should be doing but seem to be so swayed by special interests to keep the status quo and even fatten it up, even as we go deeper and deeper in debt.
Sorry to get off subject, but it's still stupid CA politics!!!
Ok ....here's the plan:
Sean Walsh, a former Wilson aide involved in his reorganization efforts, said Schwarzenegger should sell reorganization to lawmakers as an alternative to raising taxes or cutting deeply into social services.
A failure by lawmakers to approve the plan might simply strengthen Schwarzenegger's hand at the ballot box to win approval of the overhaul and, if he chooses, to push for a part-time Legislature.
Recall all of them.
I.E. Message to the two Corporations.....send money....
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