Assemblywoman Alyson Huber wants to review, scale down number of state commissions

Tired of seeing commissions not being held accountable after their founders leave office, Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-El Dorado Hills, plans to introduce a bill requiring automatic sunsets. Due to term limits, Huber said inexperienced legislatures will find a problem and start a committee, and then the newly formed agency becomes a permanent institution.

"We create things to solve problems instead of repurposing our resources. … We add another layer," she said.

Huber argues that mandatory sunsets will put pressure on committees to reach goals and fix problems, whether they are dedicated to blueberries or higher education.

"It changes the mindset of the organization to, 'We have 10 years, five years or two years to solve a problem and show everyone what we have done.'"

A sunset law mandates that all committees have a predetermined lifespan. Once the sunset date is reached, the committee or commission will disappear or there can be a review process if the agency is still needed, Huber said.

This changes the process, she said, because then the leaders of the commission need to prove why their agency should still exist. She said the review process will "shine a flashlight" on what is being accomplished by these boards and how fast it is happening.

Republican Jack Sieglock, who is running for Huber's seat in 2010, said he believes the legislature has focused on talking instead of taking action to control costs and eliminate inefficiencies. Sieglock, who is a former Lodi city councilman and San Joaquin County supervisor, said Huber's proposal addresses only a small part of the funding problems in Sacramento. The state needs to slash funding to balance the budget, like cities and counties have already done, he said.

"It could make somewhat of a difference, but I think the choices they are going to have to make are more difficult. And they are not engaging in these conversations," he said.

Huber said her bill will intentionally not have specific details on the best way to review the committees to see if they should extend past the sunset date, because she believes the first challenge in Sacramento is to convince legislatures it's important to review government bureaucracy.

"We need to get enough people to believe in the big picture," she said. "I'm asking people to look back on how we govern."

She has studied other states like Texas that require automatic sunsets, and said there are several different ways they review what commissions remain or are dissolved.

She does know that all new commissions will be included, and she would like to move quickly as opposed to waiting for a study on the idea.

"We can't miss this opportunity by doing studies," she said.

Excerpted from www.lodinews.com