Task force reviews 1990s Governor Schaeffer agency‑consolidation recommendations
Loading...
Summary
Legislative Council staff presented a memo summarizing Governor Ed Schafer's early‑1990s recommendations to combine or eliminate state agencies; committee members discussed how to evaluate whether later consolidations achieved their intended efficiencies.
Legislative Council staff presented a historical summary of Governor Ed Schafer's agency consolidation and elimination recommendations from the 1990s and early 2000s, drawing lessons for the current task force about how agency reorganizations can take years to complete and require follow‑up evaluation.
"This was a memo that I prepared in response to a suggestion and some comments made by Mr. Casper at the last meeting regarding agency consolidation and elimination efforts that were proposed by Governor Schaeffer in the 90s," Levi, Legislative Council staff, told the task force as he introduced the memorandum. He noted the memo catalogues which recommendations were approved, which were not and which later reappeared in modified form.
Levi highlighted several examples in the memo. For instance, he said, a Governor Schaeffer recommendation in 1993 to combine a securities function with the insurance commissioner was not approved by that year's Legislative Assembly but a similar change later occurred; Levi told members that an action of that nature had been approved during the 2025 Legislative Session. He also traced several proposals for how the state's Soil Conservation Committee and related programs were restructured over multiple sessions before reaching a later configuration.
Janet Drew, a new policy analyst introduced by staff, attended the meeting as part of the Legislative Council's expanded analytical capacity. "I'm looking forward to working with all of you and meeting all of you," Drew said after Levi introduced her.
Committee members used the historical memo to frame a procedural question that recurred in the meeting: when agencies are combined, how should legislators determine whether the consolidation actually worked? Senator Hogan asked how to evaluate whether mergers — such as past changes in regulation of fire insurance or a prior consolidation of health and human services functions — produced the intended efficiencies. Levi and several legislators said the task force will need to decide in future meetings what performance information agencies should report back to the legislature following consolidation.
"We had our presuppositions of what would the IT unification do ... But we never really said, we want these three things reported back to us," Levi said, urging the committee to set the expectations for future reorganizations.
No formal action was taken; members discussed whether the task force should request agencies to present before the committee to explain how services operated before and after past consolidations. The memo was presented as background material to inform possible next steps in the task force's review of government structure and efficiency.
