Senators hear experts on reconstituting a legislative oversight committee and oversight tools
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Summary
National Conference of State Legislatures experts and the deputy state auditor urged Vermont senators to create a bipartisan, legislator-led oversight committee and to rely on established audit and evaluation offices rather than building a separate auditing function inside a joint committee.
The Senate Committee on Government Operations received presentations Feb. 20 on creating a joint legislative government accountability committee and on tools legislatures use for oversight.
Senator Randy Brock, co-chair of a summer government-accountability committee, summarized a report with 11 actionable recommendations aimed at improving how the legislature follows up on passed laws and measures program effectiveness. Brock emphasized consistent measurement and the need to ensure that enacted statutes achieve intended results.
Will Clark of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) outlined oversight tools including standing committees, sunset and sunrise reviews, administrative rules review, program evaluation and performance audits. "Legislative oversight tools are...what you all have done as legislators when that gets turned into policy," Clark said, noting that audits and evaluations serve different purposes: audits check compliance and financial controls, while evaluations assess effectiveness and outcomes.
Carrington Skinner (NCSL, Center for Results Driven Governing) emphasized integrating reliable data and evidence into oversight work and highlighted state examples — Utah's statutory performance roles, New Mexico's agency report cards, Indiana's State Data Hub and Colorado's evidence-based budgeting designation — as models for developing dashboards and performance metrics.
Tim Ash, deputy state auditor, urged the committee to make voting members legislators and to avoid adding a separate performance-audit function to a joint oversight committee; he recommended collaboration with the auditor's office for rigorous audits. Ash also described a recent auditor's office inquiry into radon testing in schools, finding that about 70% of schools had complied and roughly 30% had not, which illustrated gaps in follow-up when statutes lack reporting requirements.
Presenters encouraged bipartisan design, limited initial procedural requirements so the committee can develop a track record, and coordination with standing committees to select a manageable number of review topics each year. No formal committee action on charting a final structure was recorded during the session.