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Consolidating Connecticut's Ethics Agencies Would Be Wrong for Several Reasons
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
Robert Wechsler
Agency consolidation seems to be the buzzword this year. The
ostensible reason is to save money and use government resources more
efficiently. But is this really the principal reason?
A bill has just been introduced in Connecticut (my state) to place the Office of State Ethics (the state ethics commission), the Freedom of Information Commission, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (campaign finance and public financing), the Judicial Review Council, and the Contracting Standards Board into one Office of Government Accountability.
Each of these agencies deals with different aspects of government ethics. Each has jurisdiction over different people and entities. Each is most likely underfunded to begin with.
There is not likely to be any more savings or other advantage to consolidating these agencies than there would be by cutting each agency's budget. And there might be a good deal of loss if the various executive directors were not to continue leading their agencies. Each of the major three agencies has a relatively new executive director, but all have a great deal of experience. [Disclosure: I know and respect two of the agency heads.]
Most important, each agency has some degree of independence, without which everything they do, and especially what they don't do, would look questionable. There's nothing worse than a conflict of interest at the center of an agency devoted to dealing with conflicts of interest.
And yet the major change this consolidation bill makes is to undermine the agencies' independence. While the executive director of the Office of State Ethics is chosen by and accountable to the Citizen's Ethics Advisory Board, the executive director of the FOI commission is chosen by and accountable to the FOI Commission, and the executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission is chosen by and accountable to that commission, the executive director of the new Office of Government Accountability would be selected by and accountable to the governor.
This means that all of these agencies would be managed by someone who would be seen as the governor's person. If someone can tell me how this could be good for these agencies, how it could save money, and how it could be more efficient or effective, I would like to know.
Perhaps this is just an oversight on the part of the sponsors. But considering the past, in which Connecticut's former governor, while under investigation, tried to destroy the predecessor to the Office of State Ethics, as well as considering precedents elsewhere, that is hard to believe. If this bill was passed, it would appear that the governor wanted to make sure he had control over all aspects of the state's ethics program. And no one would trust any of the agencies.
Why? Because there would be a big conflict at the center of whatever these agencies did. Not only would the public not trust the programs, but whenever there was disagreement, those who sit on the agency boards and work for the agencies would wonder what the management's orders were.
Even without this serious mistake, it does not seem to me that what is going on here is more than making it appear that politicians are doing something to save money. Appearance is not only important to government ethics, but in a different, insidious sense it is equally important to politics. Losing valuable administrators and gaining an ungainly conglomerate, all to save a few hundred thousand dollars a year, does not seem good value to me.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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A bill has just been introduced in Connecticut (my state) to place the Office of State Ethics (the state ethics commission), the Freedom of Information Commission, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (campaign finance and public financing), the Judicial Review Council, and the Contracting Standards Board into one Office of Government Accountability.
Each of these agencies deals with different aspects of government ethics. Each has jurisdiction over different people and entities. Each is most likely underfunded to begin with.
There is not likely to be any more savings or other advantage to consolidating these agencies than there would be by cutting each agency's budget. And there might be a good deal of loss if the various executive directors were not to continue leading their agencies. Each of the major three agencies has a relatively new executive director, but all have a great deal of experience. [Disclosure: I know and respect two of the agency heads.]
Most important, each agency has some degree of independence, without which everything they do, and especially what they don't do, would look questionable. There's nothing worse than a conflict of interest at the center of an agency devoted to dealing with conflicts of interest.
And yet the major change this consolidation bill makes is to undermine the agencies' independence. While the executive director of the Office of State Ethics is chosen by and accountable to the Citizen's Ethics Advisory Board, the executive director of the FOI commission is chosen by and accountable to the FOI Commission, and the executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission is chosen by and accountable to that commission, the executive director of the new Office of Government Accountability would be selected by and accountable to the governor.
This means that all of these agencies would be managed by someone who would be seen as the governor's person. If someone can tell me how this could be good for these agencies, how it could save money, and how it could be more efficient or effective, I would like to know.
Perhaps this is just an oversight on the part of the sponsors. But considering the past, in which Connecticut's former governor, while under investigation, tried to destroy the predecessor to the Office of State Ethics, as well as considering precedents elsewhere, that is hard to believe. If this bill was passed, it would appear that the governor wanted to make sure he had control over all aspects of the state's ethics program. And no one would trust any of the agencies.
Why? Because there would be a big conflict at the center of whatever these agencies did. Not only would the public not trust the programs, but whenever there was disagreement, those who sit on the agency boards and work for the agencies would wonder what the management's orders were.
Even without this serious mistake, it does not seem to me that what is going on here is more than making it appear that politicians are doing something to save money. Appearance is not only important to government ethics, but in a different, insidious sense it is equally important to politics. Losing valuable administrators and gaining an ungainly conglomerate, all to save a few hundred thousand dollars a year, does not seem good value to me.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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