Calif. to recycle vilified waste management board

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- State lawmakers acquiesced Friday in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's insistence that they eliminate a board he says has long been a patronage haven for former legislators.

The governor has sought to eliminate the Integrated Waste Management Board and a handful of other boards and commissions since he pledged in 2004 to reorganize state government. But he has continued to appoint members to $132,178-a-year waste board positions ever since.

Both houses of the state Legislature voted to end the 20-year-old board's operations as part of a complex package of bills they were considering Friday in an effort to close California's $26 billion budget deficit.

Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro, who served 10 years on the board, argued against its elimination, calling it the state's most successful environmental program.

The board oversees hundreds of employees who regulate landfills and recycling programs for construction waste, electronics, scrap tires, yard clippings and other material.

"This is the governor's grandstanding, headline-grabbing, non-solution," said Chesbro, a Democrat from Arcata.

Schwarzenegger has projected that eliminating the board's five members will save up to $3 million annually, but it doesn't help California's immediate budget woes because the board is funded through fees, not general taxes.

Still, it has become a lightning rod for criticism and a symbol of bloated government. "We have the largest state bureaucracy of any state in the union," said Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-Lodi, who carried the bill in the Assembly. "I don't think this bill goes far enough. ... It is a good beginning."

Three of the board's five current appointed members are former state Democratic lawmakers. Democratic senators argued that the board provides a valuable layer of public oversight on decisions about environmental regulations.

Opponents said the board provides patronage jobs.

"If you look at the board, a lot of them are former members of the Legislature who are termed out, who got soft landings," said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, who noted that lawmakers were voting to eliminate billions of dollars in funding to the blind and disabled. "I think we forget this should be one of the first things on the chopping block, not the last thing on the chopping block," he said.

The Department of Conservation will take over the board's duties and its 450 employees. The Assembly approved the bill on a 47-18 roll call. Senate approval came on a 21-15 vote, sending the measure to Schwarzenegger.

For Schwarzenegger, the board's eradication is one small victory toward his dwindling effort to make structural changes to the way California's government operates.

"This is a victory for California taxpayers," Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, said in an e-mail Friday. "Californians elected the governor to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and he is delivering."

Excerpted from www.sacbee.com