The Senate Committee on Government Organization has published its report to the 82nd Legislature. Below is a summary of the recommendations.
Interim Charge 1—Review all committees, councils and task forces with overlapping charges in an effort to streamline and eliminate overlapping workgroups across state government agencies and programs.
Interim Charge 1 Recommendations:
1) The Council on Children and Families should work to consolidate meetings in order to minimize duplicative work and maximize the use of state employee time.
2) Increase cooperation between the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities, Texas Council of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, the Promoting Independence Advisory Committee and Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities.
3) Merge the Early Childhood Health and Nutrition Interagency Council, Farm to School Task Force, and Healthy Food Advisory Committee into one CCTF focused on promoting the health and nutrition of children and those in underserved areas.
4) Agencies should establish and implement a process to review proposed CCTF’s during the 82nd Legislature, analyze them, and share information with legislators regarding the need for the proposed CCTF’s and any that can be consolidated.
Interim Charge 2—Study the online services provided by the state and compare those services to the services provided by other states. In coordination with the Department of Information Resources, determine how online services provided by the state can be improved.
Interim Charge 2 Recommendations:
1) The Department of Information Resources (DIR) should begin building a business case to expand and improve the Open Data center on Texas.gov as an online service to the citizens of Texas. The Committee also urges all state agencies to cooperate with DIR’s efforts to publish public information wherever it can be done with negligible costs.
2) State agencies are encouraged to utilize online content management services available through DIR when upgrading or redesigning their online presence, when cost effective models are available.
3) Develop a GIS data catalog or index of resources available across agencies. The collection of this data will encourage collaboration and provide a standard resource for locating GIS data sets collected across the state.
Interim Charge 3—Review opportunities for increasing the transparency of government operations and make recommendations for enhancing public access to government.
Interim Charge 3 Recommendations:
1) The Legislative Budget Board (LBB) should post the markup document and blank decision document online as soon as reasonably possible after it is delivered to committee members.
2) Fully publish appropriations riders online as soon as fiscal conditions allow sufficient staff in the Senate Finance Committee to do so.
3) Both chambers attempt to post the appropriations bill online for a full 48 hours before it receives a floor vote, either coming out of committee or conference committee.
4) The LBB consider making the following changes when it upgrades or replaces its current budget information system: examine the feasibility of providing public access to the internal database to track appropriations bills via a website; break spending down by specific programs (rather than just agency-wide strategies) in its publications on the appropriations bill; provide non-governmental software and website developers direct, read-only access to the budget database; include contextual budget “roadmap”-type explanations alongside information on the budget’s development; and link figures on agency appropriations with outcome and/or output measures used by agencies and the LBB to gauge the success of programs.
5) Committee clerks attempt to include within hearing minutes time-stamps of the beginning of proceedings on each bill and each witness’s testimony, when fiscally possible.
6) Committees attempt to post written materials submitted by invited witnesses in advance of hearings and all written materials submitted by witnesses within 24 hours of a hearing, when fiscally possible.
7) Committee clerks attempt to include the votes of individual committee members within the hearing minutes posted on Texas Legislature Online, when fiscally possible.
A copy of the complete report can be found by visiting:
http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/commit/c565/c565.InterimReport81.pdf