The Indiana Law Blog

Indiana Law - Reports of the Government Efficiency Commission

There have been a number of stories in the press about the Government Efficiency Commission. In early October, for instance, Lesley Stedman Weidenbener of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote:

[T]he General Assembly appointed its own commission last year to look at government efficiency. Committees and subcommittees have been meeting for 18 months, looking for ways to reorganize agencies and services to save money and provide more efficient services.

That came from this 10/3/04 ILB entry. And on Nov. 12th, in this ILB entry, I wrote:

I've seen several stories now on reports of various subcommittees of the Indiana Government Efficiency Commission and can't wait to see the actual documents. When available, I will of course post links here.

I've been doing my best to locate the reports. I'm told printed copies are not available to the public, although there have been televised shots of individuals with what appeared to be printed reports. The reports now may be available on CDs from the Legislative Services Agency's (LSA's) public bill room; but when I called only one CD, of what was projected to be a set of at least two, was available, at a cost of $10.00 each, plus mailing.

Later, I was told that the report would be posted online, but that "the report consisted of several different document formats that was making it slow going getting it all on the web."

This weekend various portions of the report were "made available" online. I use the phrase "made available" advisedly, because it appears that little effort was expended by the Efficiency Commission to make these documents useable, or even to identify them adequately.

There is a possibility that something more in the way of presentation is planned. But in case it is not, or to fill the gap, here is some guidance and some cautions. But first, take note that what follows does not deal with the content of the reports, but simply with access to that content. (I have examined the content of several documents in the general government area, and my initial feeling is the quality is decidedly mixed.)

Here is the 10-page "Introduction to Government Efficiency Commission Report", followed by 38 pages of appendices. (All reports are in PDF format.) Some quotes:

The Indiana General Assembly created the Government Efficiency Commission [Appendix A for copy of Bill] in 2003 to study this fiscal imbalance. The Commission was to report and make recommendations to the Governor and to the General Assembly no later than December 31, 2004. This is that report.

The enabling legislation stipulated that the Commission’s work be focused in four subcommittee areas:

1. K-12 – headed by David Shane – represents approximately 34% of the FY 2004 appropriations.

2. Higher Education – headed by Tom Reilly – represents approximately 13% of FY 2004 appropriations.

3. Medicaid and Human Services – headed by Kevin Brinegar – represents approximately 18% of FY 2004 appropriations.

4. General Government – headed by Steve Baranyk – represents approximately 10% of FY 2004 appropriations.

Note: The remaining 25% of FY 2004 appropriations are in Property Tax Replacement, Teacher Pensions, and Capital Categories

The Act creating the Commission specifically charged it with making recommendations to the Governor and General Assembly on ways to improve the functions, efficiencies and reduce waste on other unnecessary cost associated with any state funded agency, department or program.

Looking at General Government first, here is the state's page on the Government Efficiency Commission Subcommittee on General Government. What you will find when you go there is a bewildering number of documents, with no identification. Scroll down that page until you get to the 10 documents under the heading "Reports." Pretend they are numbered 1 through 10 and use the following Guide that I have prepared:

1. Executive Summary - General Government Subcommittee (56 pages)

2. Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles Efficiency Task Team Report (10 pages)

3. Indiana Department of Natural Resources Efficiency Task Team Report (46 pages) [Note that if you do not have a high-speed browser, you may have difficulties with this report because it is 37 MB (37,914 KB). For my own purposes, I was able to download it and then convert it to a 180 KB file by separating out a scanned appendix, which would have been a much more efficient way for the Efficiency Committee to post it. If you have problems viewing this or any of the Commission's files online, you might try downloading them to your own computer first, and then opening the files in Acrobat Reader. To download, use right-click on the link and then select "Save target as ...".]

4. Indiana Department of Correction Efficiency Task Team Report (62 pages)

5. Indiana Department of Environmental Management Efficiency Task Team Report (36 pages)

6. Indiana Department of Transportation Efficiency Task Team Report (30 pages)

7. Personnel Task Team Efficiency Task Team Report (28 pages)

8. Indiana Department of Revenue Efficiency Task Team Report (28 pages) (18.4 MB, which easily could have been reduced to 1.8 MB document by flattening the graphics.)

9. Information Technology Working Group Efficiency Task Team Report (77 pages)

10. This is a 1,409 page document titled "Cost Containment Strategies for State Correctional Facilities: A Compilation of Resource Materials." It is a whooping 317 MB, as posted.

This completes the ILB Guide to one of the four areas of the Efficiency Commission's study, General Government.

[More] The Indianapolis Star has articles today in the Sunday Focus section on the Efficiency Commission's General Government and Medicaid reports, written by the reports' authors.

Posted by Marcia Oddi at November 21, 2004 02:00 PM