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Moving budget reviews to the Comptroller

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

This Bill:

  1. Moves Texas Performance Reviews, which were given by the Legislature to the Legislative Budget Board in 2003, back to the Comptroller’s office.
  2. Increases transparency and credibility of performance reviews in a way that costs no additional money.


How:

  • Transfers to the Comptroller, and from the LBB, performance review functions covering interscholastic competition, school districts, higher education institutions, and records management, plus efficiency reviews of state agencies.
  • Transfers Performance Review employees, records, equipment, and appropriations from LBB to the Comptroller.
  • Moving this function from one agency to another should have no fiscal impact on the state


Why:

  • This change would ensure that the most appropriate state authority is monitoring the state’s finances, looking for both waste and efficiencies through this function, and defending the findings when needed.
  • The bill moves effective budget oversight out from under the legislators and budget writers who, directly or indirectly, are being checked and balanced by it. 
  • The shift would negate a decision in 2003 that, according to news reports at the time, stemmed largely from political issues concerning specific individuals who were involved.


Relevant Statistics:

  • Texas Performance Reviews – reports that analyzed state government and sought to end waste and find efficiencies – were developed and made prominent by the governor and the state comptroller’s office in the early 1990s.
  • They were designed to find and free-up revenue without raising taxes, and they became a national model.
  • In 2005, the 79th Legislature, the first to consider performance reviews under the LBB staff, adopted more than $1.8 billion in recommendations from performance review staff, but declined another $1.2 billion in recommendations.
  • Of the 143 recommendations submitted by Performance Review staff before the 2008-09 biennium, just 73 were adopted or passed.
  • While significant funds remain at issue in the performance reviews, the studies this year target much less in potential savings than they have in the past.  Only about $119 million in savings were identified in the report to the 81st Legislative Session.