Tavares, FL - April 15, 2011 - This is what we need in Lake County and Florida. A commission like one in Texas with a responsibility to review the policies and programs of more than 150 government agencies every 12 years. The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission questions the need for more than 150 agencies, looks for potential duplication of other public services or programs, and considers new and innovative changes to improve each agency's operations and activities. The Commission seeks public input through hearings on every agency under Sunset review and recommends actions on each agency to the full Legislature. In most cases, agencies under Sunset review are automatically abolished unless legislation is enacted to continue them.
I found out about this Commission while reading THIS story on how the North Texas Tollway Authority is facing fraud allegations, and people are calling for this commission to review them.
There is even a menu item "How to Participate" which describes specifically how the public can become involved.
This is a great idea for some Lake County Board member to build their fiscal conservative chops. Create a commission like this for Lake County, and implement it to question departments and programs.
UPDATE: We found that there ARE Sunset Reviews in Florida. This is from the website of the Florida Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability (OPPAGA):
The 2006 Legislature passed the Florida Governmental Accountability Act, (Ch. 2006-146, Laws of Florida, later modified by Ch. 2007-161, Laws of Florida) to create a legislative Sunset Review process to determine if a public need exists for the continuation of a state agency and its advisory committees. The Act provides for the creation of a Joint Legislative Sunset Committee and describes the membership and organization of the committee and committee duties. The Act also requires OPPAGA to provide primary research services to support the process and establishes the process, criteria, and schedule for the Legislature to assess whether state agencies and advisory committees need to continue to exist.
For more information about the Sunset Review process and publications produced during this process, see the Joint Sunset Committee's website.
OPPAGA Information Provided to the Joint Sunset Committee
Visiting the Joint Sunset Committee website linked above, we found :
- There were only TWO "final reports" published on the "Publications" page and the last one was 33 pages and for 2010. It covered these departments:
Department of Community Affairs
Department of Management Services
It recommended closure of the Council on Efficient Government, and my check of their website HERE indicated they were closed. Most of their reports focused on privatization, and were from other sources, and their "Guidelines" were on outsourcing techniques.
Department of Children & Family Services
Department of State
Abolished several Councils and Committees, and merged them into other agencies.
- NO committee meetings since Feb., 2010. It looks like they relies on OPPAGA to provide reports on selected agencies, and that stopped in early 2009 (when their budget was slashed after Jeb Bush went out of office, I suspect).
- There was a list of agencies to be reviewed each year HERE, but it seemed they stopped in 2009 or 2010.
- There isn't even a contact or staff roster page.
I wasn't too impressed.
Vance Jochim
Here is the Texas website: http://www.sunset.state.tx.us/
