The State Worker

The bipartisan Little Hoover Commission today voted 7-0 to endorse Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to reorganize state government.

The proposal calls for replacing five agencies with three, shuffling or eliminating some or all of the functions of several commissions and boards within the executive branch and folding the work of several departments into new or existing organizations. For more details and documents about the particulars, click here.

State law requires that the commission advise the Legislature on gubernatorial government reorganization initiatives. Either the Assembly or the Senate can block the proposal by majority-vote resolution within 60 days of the governor delivering the plan to lawmakers.

Otherwise, the reorganization becomes effective on the 61st day, in this case July 1. It would become operative one year later. There's no indication that there's significant opposition to Brown's plan.

Click here for more information on the Little Hoover Commission's website.

PHOTO: Stuart Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission speaks at a 2011 legislative hearing. / Sacramento Bee file, Hector Amezcua.

The Little Hoover Commission has scheduled three days of hearings to consider Gov. Jerry Brown's government overhaul proposal starting Monday, 9 a.m. in the Employment Development Department Auditorium at 722 Capitol Mall.

The nonpartisan commission has until the end of this month to deliver its recommendations about the government reorganization plan to the Legislature. The plan goes into effect unless a majority in either the Assembly or the Senate reject it within 60 days of receiving the commission's report.

Brown's plan shuffles departments, eliminates agencies and consolidates others. The governor says the plan would streamline government and save money.

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If you haven't already, check out the list of agencies, departments, boards, offices and commissions that Gov. Jerry Brown wants to ax, reorganize and consolidate, then take our poll:

Now that we've had time to digest Gov. Jerry Brown's hastily-unveiled 2012-13 budget proposal summary, we've boiled down the full list of changes he's suggesting to streamline state government:

Lawmakers are convening a joint committee hearing this morning at 9:30 to review Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to merge non-constitutionally-mandated functions of the State Personnel Board with the Department of Personnel Administration.

The plan aims to modernize California's outdated, clunky and redundant human resources infrastructure. But state employee union leaders worry that some provisions of the plan will erode civil service protections. They're particularly concerned about new discipline guidelines to be written by the new California Department of Human Resources that labor fears will unconstitutionally influence disputes that come before the Personnel Board.

Officials who helped draft the the reorganization plan, including DPA Director Ron Yank, have brushed aside those concerns with assurances that the Personnel Board will retain its constitutional independence. The unions, Yank said, will have a seat at the table when the discipline guidelines are written.

Today's hearing of the Senate Governmental Organization and Senate Public Employment and Retirement committees will take the political temperature of lawmakers toward the plan. The merger will go into effect unless either the Assembly or the Senate pass a resolution rejecting the idea by Sept. 9.
110823 Hearing Agenda (Aug 23 2011)