State commission begins reviews of 27 agencies

April 28, 2008

By Enrique Rangel | A-J AUSTIN BUREAU

AUSTIN - State Rep. Carl Isett takes pride on being a reformer.

But as the new chairman of the Sunset Advisory Commission, a panel that oversees all state agencies and has the authority to recommend abolishing those they believe are no longer useful, the Lubbock Republican is finding out it's not easy to reform or trim a bureaucracy of 167 agencies, commissions and boards.

"We certainly have a big government operation," Isett said before the Commission met for nearly eight hours last week to review the first three of 27 agencies and commissions due for review this year.

"But it's our job as members of the Sunset Commission to make sure that all these agencies, commissions and boards work and are not a burden to the taxpayer," Isett added. "This is what our colleagues (in the Legislature) and the citizens of Texas expect us to do and that's what we set out to do."

Isett also is the only legislator from the South Plains and Panhandle delegation sitting on the Sunset Commission, one of the most influential legislative panels.

The agencies, commissions and boards due for review during Isett's two-year tenure as chairman (the chairmanship is rotated every two years between the House and the Senate, so the next chairman or chairwoman will be a senator) include Agriculture, Insurance, Public Safety, Transportation, Parks and Wildlife and the troubled Texas Youth commission.

State agencies, commissions and boards usually come up for review every 12 years, and occasionally the panel recommends to the Legislature abolishing one or two. That's what happened last year when the Pest Control Board was put out of business.

Though legislative watchers say the likes of Agriculture, Insurance, Public Safety and Parks and Wildlife departments are expected to pass their reviews with flying colors, some like Transportation and TYC will be on the hot seat.

"In every cycle you have one or two agencies that are in or have had trouble," said William Lutz, managing editor of the Lone Star Report, an online publication specializing on legislative issues. "TYC, and you can make the argument that the Department of Transportation is one this year, are going to have a thorough Sunset review."

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, already has suggested getting rid of TYC because of the sex-abuse scandal of three years ago. No one has suggested a similar fate for the Texas Department of Transportation but the agency has been on the hot seat for more than a year mainly because of its budget problems and growing public opposition to the proposed network of toll roads.

Isett and some of his colleagues said despite some negative views the public and some lawmakers may have about a few of the troubled agencies, as Sunset Commission members they must be open-minded during the review process.

"I think we should always be fair and give everyone a chance to justify the reason, and there was a reason that agency or those agencies were created," Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, said last week after the Sunset Commission heard from the Agriculture Department, Affordable Housing and the Racing Commission.

"Sometimes it's very easy to shout we don't need them anymore," Flynn said. "Let's find out why because we don't want something to slip through the crack and all of the sudden having to create another agency."

Like Isett and other legislators, Flynn said he thinks with 167 agencies, commissions and boards, the state bureaucracy is huge but still manageable.

Learning from the California experience

"We certainly don't want to be like California," Flynn said. "How can a legislature oversee a big bureaucracy like that one. That's why you have 1,200 Californians moving to Texas every day."

The Golden State has about 1,000 agencies, commissions and boards and one of the first tasks for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he took office four years ago was to explore ways to reform and trim the state's bureaucracy.

In a 2005 report to Schwarzenegger, a commission he appointed to examine ways to reduce the state's government apparatus wrote this:

"Boards and commissions have proliferated in California at a staggering rate and now comprise a substantial portion of the bureaucratic weight of state government. While many boards and commissions provide a critical oversight or regulatory function, others do little to advance the interests of the people of California. In fact, many boards and commissions have outlived their usefulness and interfere with the efficiency and accountability of delivery services."

Although it is hard for Sunset Commission members to envision Texas bureaucracy growing as big as California, they are aware Texas has the second largest state bureaucracy in the Union, far bigger than the bureaucracies of other populous states.

New York, for example, is a distant third with 123 agencies, commissions and boards, and Ohio, fourth with 93 while Illinois has 76, Pennsylvania 57, New Jersey, 52 and Florida, 43, according to their Web sites.

Isett said despite Texas' explosive demographic growth of the last two decades, the state has managed to keep its bureaucracy under control thanks to the Sunset Commission, created in 1977.

The 10-member commission's basic premise is to ask of each agency: "Do its functions continue to be needed?" Isett said.

Though the bureaucracy works for the entire state, some, like Agriculture and even obscure agencies such as Affordable Housing, are vital for West Texas, he said.

"When you think about Affordable Housing you think about big projects in inner cities trying to create opportunities for people to have nice houses or higher standards," he said. But the agency is allowed to do tax-exempt bond issues "to attract capital to build good, affordable housing for Texans throughout the state, including rural areas."

The Agriculture Department plays a major role in the economy of the South Plains and Panhandle.

"Cotton represents $11 billion in our state economy, which is a big part of the gross state product of our state," he said. "And the majority of that cotton is grown in the High Plains.

"While people in Lubbock and Amarillo may not think about it every day, everybody who wakes up in Hereford, in Dumas or Borger or Sundown thinks about it because Gaines County is the number one cotton producing county," Isett added. "At the core of the economic strength of our region is agriculture."