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Legislature Hears Task Force Bill to Find State Agency Efficiencies; Governor's Office Seeks Minor Makeup Changes
Summary
House Bill 1442 would create a joint task force to review agency budgets, administrative rules and regulatory burdens with a six-year sunset. Supporters emphasized savings and oversight; the State Board of Pharmacy flagged duplication with an existing bill covering licensing boards.
Representative Nathan Toman told the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee that House Bill 1442 would establish a task force to perform a deep review of state agency budgets, regulatory burdens and administrative rules and to recommend efficiencies for the next legislative session.
Toman described the task force as a working group intended to meet monthly and to dig into program delivery, duplication and opportunities to consolidate services and trim spending. He said the task force would produce reports and could submit legislation to the legislature at the next session.
Key design features discussed at the hearing included a six-year sunset and staffing arrangements. Toman said the panel was converted from a larger interim committee to a joint task force and that legislative council staff would support the task force; the panel would not create a permanent new bureaucracy, he said, but would require dedicated staff time. “The intent certainly was not to grow bureaucracy and grow government to find efficiencies,” he said, explaining why the bill includes staff provisions and a multi-year sunset.
Al Dorman, representing the governor's office, said the governor supports the concept and planned to offer friendly amendments to the bill’s membership and appointment language so the task force would include additional elected officials while balancing legislative and executive appointments. Dorman said the governor’s office would provide the proposed amendments to the committee.
The State Auditor's Office testified in support in concept. Dan Cox, director of audit services, told the committee the auditor’s office already performs performance audits of state agencies and has the expertise to contribute to the task force’s work but noted that performance audits of local governments are not performed routinely by that office; the auditor could perform performance audits of local governments but typically performs financial audits for local units.
The North Dakota State Board of Pharmacy urged the committee to address duplication between HB 1442 and Senate Bill 2308, which would create a separate task force to examine licensing boards. Mark Hardy, executive director of the pharmacy board, suggested removing licensing boards from HB 1442 or combining the two efforts to avoid inefficient use of resources.
Committee members questioned the six-year sunset timeline and staffing approach. Senator Wallin asked whether the task force would create new FTEs; Toman responded legislative council staffing would absorb the work with no immediate new hires dedicated solely to the task force unless appropriations were later required. The sponsor said six years was chosen to extend beyond election cycles to allow consistent work across sessions.
No formal action or vote was recorded during the hearing; members indicated friendly amendment work would continue and assigned a senator to help shepherd the amendment process.
Ending: Committee members agreed to coordinate amendments and report back; the committee closed the hearing with a request that the governor’s office and sponsor provide draft amendments to the committee staff for consideration.
