Credit House Speaker Pat Colwell for making a virtue of necessity by reintroducing a government-oversight agency just as the absence of oversight from years past catches up with the state. This nonpartisan agency might not have immediately caught problems that have recently surfaced at the departments of Human Services and Education, but it is a good bet it would have caught them sooner and helped the Legislature understand the nature of the problems faster.

The Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability represents a new level of access to the inner workings of state government. It would, at the direction of the Legislature, examine the operations of government and make recommendations for improvement. Forty-four states have such an office and report that they have saved many millions of dollars more than what the office costs to operate. It is fair to guess that Maine could save too, creating a more efficient government and providing lawmakers with impartial research on major issues like tax reform, agency accounting or a department’s responsiveness to public requests.

That makes the office a state-level General Accounting Office. Florida’s version, called the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, which was used as a model for the Maine plan, was created in 1994 to conduct policy reviews, analyze performance under performance-based budgeting and provide an agency accountability report to the public. Through its analysis and advice, Florida government has saved nearly $300 million to date. And at least as valuable as the money are the understanding among state agencies that someone is checking up on them and the confidence among voters that policy experts looking at how tax dollars are spent.

Working with both Republicans and other Democrats, Speaker Colwell vowed recently to find funding for the agency as he appointed six House members to a panel that would have jurisdiction over it. Funding has been a problem for the OPEGA since it was introduced and approved last year. There has been some dispute over how much it would cost, but the speaker said he would seek least $300,000 in the 2004-2005 biennium for the new agency. That would be a wise investment, which in a very short time should pay dividends for Maine.

If Maine is going to continue to try to solve large issues such as reforming taxes, combining departments and creating new social services, the state will require considerably more information, and more credible information, than it has now. Much legislative debate is generated by a lack of agreement on basic points – how a department operates, whether it is following its mission, the likely effect of a new proposal. Some of this debate could be avoided and better decisions made if lawmakers had mutually accepted data and analysis. The same is true for the public, which would gain access to information about their government that is not now available.

OPEGA has been used successfully in almost every state. It could work here as well.