Idaho Republican lawmakers want to neuter office that evaluates state government | Opinion
Idaho Republican legislators are trying to neuter an important office that conducts independent, nonpartisan evaluations of government functions.
House Majority Leader Rep. Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett, on Wednesday morning introduced a bill to eliminate the bipartisan Joint Legislative Oversight Committee and put the Office of Performance Evaluations under the jurisdiction of the partisan Legislative Council.
The Office of Performance Evaluations, formed in 1994, examines the efficiency and effectiveness of state agencies, programs and policies. The Legislature established the office to be independent and nonpartisan so its work would be objective and credible.
The office conducts performance evaluations at the direction of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee, which consists of four Republicans, four Democrats, four House members and four senators. It has two co-chairs — one Republican and one Democrat.
The bipartisan nature of the committee is vital. It works because it leads to meaningful, nonpartisan studies that lead to results. There’s less government waste, less government abuse and less policy failure that goes undetected.
The Legislative Council, meanwhile, is much different from the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee. It oversees the management responsibilities of the Legislature and is controlled by the majority party.
Some might argue that since Republicans hold a majority in the Legislature, why should Democrats have equal representation when determining what evaluations should be approved?
Because having a bipartisan committee means there’s a stronger, even-handed check on decisions being made by the Legislature.
If the Republican-majority Legislature passes a bill, and someone wants to know what the fiscal impact of that is, a Republican-dominated Legislative Council may not be in a rush to approve a study that could make Republicans look bad.
That’s what happened in North Carolina, another state whose Legislature is dominated by the GOP.
Legislators there got rid of their nonpartisan Program Evaluation Division two years ago and replaced it with a partisan office called Gov Ops.
How’s it been going?
“The thing has disappeared,” John Turcotte, the now-retired former director of the North Carolina Program Evaluation Division, told me by phone. “They’ve done no reports. Zero. I keep checking regularly to see when they’re going to come out with a report, and they haven’t come out with a single report. They haven’t done a damn thing.”
He said Gov Ops now conducts politically motivated “witch hunt” hearings.
Turcotte, who spent his entire 50-year career in government evaluations roles all over the country, including Florida, Mississippi and North Carolina, said these offices and their studies and reports are important to give citizens confidence in good government.
“If you’re a citizen out there, and you’re looking at a study, if it’s done by an independent group and they say this is factual, the citizens can say, ‘Well, look, this is what the experts say, and this is what the accountants said, this is what the science says,’” Turcotte said. “This is the truth.
“But if it’s left to a partisan political body, those results are always going to be suspect.”
The Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations has done dozens of studies on such topics as school building funding, Medicaid provider payments, prison capacity and the child foster care system. The office does five or six studies per year and has conducted 170 since its inception in 1994, according to The Associated Press.
One of the most recent OPE evaluations showed K-12 classified staff members are underpaid, to the tune of about $100 million. That evaluation already is being used by the House Education Committee in its discussions about public education funding.
But studies like that likely wouldn’t get approved under a partisan council run by supermajority Republicans.
For example, legislators this session are considering a school voucher program. If it passes, it would be highly unlikely that Republican legislators — especially GOP majority leaders — would be in a rush to have the Office of Performance Evaluations start measuring the program.
Turcotte added that Idaho’s office and its director, Rakesh Mohan, have a good standing.
“I do know from reputation that Rakesh’s group has got a very good reputation nationally,” Turcotte said. “He’s very well known in the evaluation community.”
It would be a mistake to turn the office into a partisan, political office that does the bidding of the majority party, leaving Idaho taxpayers and legislators with less information about what’s working in Idaho government — and what’s not.
