House panel reviews bill to create joint government oversight and accountability committee

House Appropriations heard a detailed review of House Bill 67 on March 18, a proposal to create a Joint Government Oversight and Accountability Committee to examine whether state laws and programs are achieving their intended outcomes. Tim Devlin, legislative counsel, walked the committee through the bill’s purpose, structure and duties; Chris Roop of the Joint Fiscal Office gave a preliminary estimate of meeting costs; and representatives from the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs described intent and limits of the draft language.

The bill would create a new chapter in Title 2 establishing an eight-member joint committee—four members from the House and four from the Senate—with a chair that rotates biennially. The committee would be supported by existing legislative staff, including the Joint Fiscal Office, Legislative Counsel and the Office of Legislative Operations. "The purpose of this act is to actuate the principle of government accountability by focusing on how evidence is used to inform policy," Tim Devlin said as he read the bill’s findings.

Devlin described duties and powers written into the draft, including authority to examine matters of "significant public concern" related to state government performance, to take or cause depositions, and to request presentations from the auditor of accounts at mutual convenience. The draft lists several, alternative tests for what constitutes an issue of "significant public concern": it may affect the state as a whole; affect a vulnerable population; cost the state more than $100,000,000; indicate a serious failure of state oversight or accountability; arise from previously enacted legislation; or constitute a failure to respond adequately to state or federal audits.

The House Government Operations committee’s amendment removes one subsection of the introduced bill that would have established an "annual audit of agency programs" pilot (identified in the draft as Section 6). Devlin summarized that change as "striking out the entirety of Section 6." The GovOps amendment also narrows how issues come before the new committee by removing language that would have allowed either chamber, by resolution, to refer issues; under the amended language issues would be selected by the committee itself.

Chris Roop of the Joint Fiscal Office said the bill does not appropriate funds or create positions but that the committee’s activity could create future budgetary pressure if the new committee sought dedicated staff or contracted services. Roop gave a planning estimate of about "$2,000 per meeting" to compensate eight legislators for meetings held when the legislature is not in session.

Members asked several substantive questions about scope and safeguards. Representative Matt Byerong, chair of Government Operations and Military Affairs, described the bill as a tool to assess whether legislative intent is implemented and to review execution of statutes: "It’s almost sort of an assessment — like a performance audit on directives that we’ve put forward," he said. Members pressed on whether subpoena authority was necessary; the bill as drafted would require the committee in its first annual report to consider whether the legislature should grant it subpoena and oath‑administering powers and whether the group needs additional staff to support its work.

Several members expressed skepticism that a politically composed committee could operate in an apolitical manner and questioned whether the committee would have sufficient technical staff (auditors, accountants, analysts) to conduct deep reviews. Representative Shay Waters Evans, the GovOps reporter for the bill, said the authors removed certain "stickier" elements from earlier drafts to reduce political risk and that the committee’s design intentionally narrows referral paths and sets statutory criteria for topics to reduce ad hoc or partisan investigations. "I am not going to name any specific department, agency, commission, committee, or anybody who we believe should be or who anyone had in mind when we were creating this bill," she said, emphasizing the bill’s stated goal to examine program effectiveness rather than pursue political inquiries.

There was no Appropriations committee vote recorded on H.67 during this meeting. Committee members signaled interest in further review, and legislators recommended soliciting additional input from legislative offices (Joint Fiscal, Legislative Council and auditor of accounts) about staffing and operational impacts before advancing the bill.

Background: the bill revives elements of an earlier Government Accountability Committee (GAC) and a later "summer GAC," both of which produced reports and recommendations in prior sessions. The current draft preserves a statutory role for the chief performance officer to provide population‑level indicators and annual outcome reporting to the new committee; it also moves a default due date for periodic legislative reports from January 15 to November 15.

What’s next: Sponsors urged further technical consultation with legislative staff and with Joint Fiscal to identify likely staffing needs should the committee seek to pursue deeper program audits or subpoena authority; the Appropriations Committee did not take final action on the bill in this session.