BOARD TO DEATH

The Legislature’s Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability recently completed a fiscal analysis of state boards, committees, commissions and councils and has recommended cutting many that have been inactive in recent years. According to OPEGA’s report, “These boards collectively consumed about 349,015 hours of state employee staff time,” which equates to 168 full-time positions, “and had costs (i.e. member fees, travel, staffing, facility and refreshment expenses) totaling about $12 million in 2007.”

Though OPEGA acknowledges the value of the work completed by the boards and commissions, some are less valuable than others. For example, the Maine Athletic Commission, according to the report, has not held an official meeting since 2004, yet in 2007 cost the state $32,854 and 104 state employee hours. Those costs were incurred primarily as a portion of a state office’s overhead.

Other groups show no costs and no state employee hours, but with the state facing a growing budget shortfall, it would do well to eliminate the inactive ones. Among the lesser-known groups listed in the report are: the board of visitors, Downeast Correctional Facility; the Capitol Planning Commissions; Board of Dental Examiners’ Subcommittee on Denturist Discipline; the Board of Emergency Municipal Finance; the Long-Term Care Oversight Committee; and the New England and Eastern Canada Legislative Commission.

The OPEGA report divides the boards and commissions into lists, one devoted to the groups with three or more seats whose terms expired early in 2007, and those that reported little or no activity in 2007. The report also identified groups that had overlapping or similar missions.

If the Legislature acts aggressively to eliminate the boards and commissions that have outlived their usefulness, the savings will not represent a windfall. But in the current fiscal climate, every dollar counts. And if the governor and Legislature are serious about reinventing state government in the face of the budget crisis, winnowing out such groups would be a step toward turning the page, making it clear that Mainers should not look to Augusta for solutions for every problem they identify. Among its practical recommendations, the report suggests the Legislature implement sunrise and sunset processes for most boards and commissions and weigh proposals to create new bodies by determining whether their potential benefits justify their costs.

In 1976, students from Harvard’s graduate business administration school studied Maine’s boards and commissions and found many of the problems that still exist, OPEGA reported. A 1984 report by the Legislature’s State Government Committee suggested the need for better oversight. It is past time to act on these studies and jettison some of these groups.