Oversight gridlock

After the Legislature strongly supported a bill to crate an oversight agency for state government in 2001, the public may have thought the agency would be operating by now. But it isn’t. In fact, the legislative committee that was supposed to be appointed to create the agency has yet to be appointed. Lawmakers should be embarrassed that they have allowed this useful idea to stall.

The nonpartisan 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. At the federal level, the Government Accounting Office, which performs similar duties, is indispensable in this role. And 44 states have such an office, reporting that they have saved many millions of dollars more than what the office costs to operate. 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.

Why the agency is not working is a small mystery. Democratic Senate President Beverly Daggett has yet to appoint the six members of the Senate (to join six waiting House members) who would form the legislative committee to oversee OPEGA, but she says she is willing to if proponents of the plan would stick to an agreement they made with her last year not to amend the bill. She doesn’t like the five amendments that proponents such as GOP Rep. David Trahan and Sen. Ed Youngblood have proposed based on a report by an expert brought to Maine by the House to review this program. The Senate president says she had a deal with these proponents not to amend the law describing the authority of the office; they reply that the office is too weak without the amendments and, anyway, they never agreed to any deal.

John Turcotte, the former head of similar agencies in Florida and Mississippi, proposed in his evaluation of the Maine program that it have access to confidential records, authority to determine whether state money is being spent well for local programs, authority to examine the use of private money by state agencies and assurance that the office director will be nonpartisan. He also suggested clarifying language so that the roles of the new office and the Department of Audit were more clearly understood.

Without these changes, say Rep. Trahan and Sen. Youngblood, the office would be ineffective and a target for elimination in the next budget. Maybe, but unless the two sides reach agreement, there will be no office to eliminate.

No matter what the understanding was in the Senate president’s office, the object of creating OPEGA is more efficient, more effective government services. That depends on members of the Legislature cooperating. If a compromise needs to be worked out as the program gets started, that is the price of compromise. But the delay must end, the Senate members should be appointed and the process of getting this badly needed office operating should go forward.