Gov. Asa Hutchinson at Tuesday's announcement in Little Rock.
Update: This article has been updated. See the end of the post for details.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Thursday directed the leaders of state agencies, boards and commissions to assist the Arkansas Policy Foundation in a study of “overall efficiency for the improvement of state government.”
The study will be called the “Efficiency Project,” and will be led in cooperation with the foundation, formed in 1995 as a nonpartisan organization that analyzes the effects of public policy on Arkansas.
In a statement, the foundation said it will act “as the facilitator of the research and subsequent recommendations.”
Hutchinson, who appeared at a Thursday afternoon event marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, said Arkansans “deserve a critical evaluation of their state government to ensure the cost-effective delivery of services …” He issued a directive to agency heads and other leaders in a memorandum.
“I direct all directors of state offices, departments, and agencies to assist the Foundation in its evaluation of our state government and in its development of recommendations to streamline state government and to make it more cost-effective and citizen accountable,” the governor said in the memo (PDF).
Hutchinson said the review will take place “in the upcoming months,” after which it will report its findings and recommendations. He said he expects the review to come back with about two-thirds recommendations that he would like to implement and one third that probably won’t be put into practice. But emphasized that “all should be considered.”
“It all starts with the efficient delivery of services in this state in a cost-efficient manner,” Hutchinson said during the foundation event. “… It’s the pennies that matter — those are what make the profit margin.”
Craig Douglass, a spokesman for the foundation who writes a recurring column on consumers in Arkansas Business, said in his Dec. 7 column that the review “will explore the notion of not necessarily maximizing resources or better directing them; instead, it will look at minimizing the cost of government to taxpayers.”
One example Douglass cited: the efficiency and effectiveness of the state’s government-related boards and commissions.
The foundation’s executive director, Greg Kaza, said in a recent post on the foundation’s website that Arkansas “lists 119 separate entities that include the words ‘board’ or ‘commission,’ though the number could be greater. A U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year has caused analysts to question whether some boards and commissions interfere with the workings of a market-based economic system.”
The Arkansas Policy Foundation conducted a major review of Arkansas state government in the 1990s. Led by Madison Murphy of El Dorado, the Murphy Commission spent about about three years on the study.
In September 1998, the commission released a 90-page report whose recommendations included a restructuring of the state’s budgeting process; performance-based pay for all state employees, including teachers; activity-based cost accounting to allocate money as it’s spent by agencies; and an independent audit of state government overseen by a bipartisan audit committee with most members outside state government and the Legislature.
Update: A previous version of this article reported the Arkansas Policy Foundation’s news release, which said Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin would lead the foundation’s review. The foundation has since said the news release was in error concerning Griffin’s role. Griffin is leading a separate review, one examining the state Department of Human Services.
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