Efforts to create legislative oversight of state agencies by the General Assembly are underway, but the work is not exactly rocketing down the tracks.
That’s partly by a combination of design, scope of work and the usual “glacial” pace of the legislature, according to state politicians and officials involved in the process.
The initial deliberate pace of oversight may partly be because the legislation that gave the General Assembly more power and more work only passed last year. [UPDATED:] Legislative oversight started in January, but the new Department of Administration won’t be unveiled until July 1.
And even then, it will be just the first year of a seven-year cycle in which members of the General Assembly will attempt to increase the efficiency and outcomes of state programs and agencies.
At the same time, legislators and observers say they hope oversight will help prevent agency meltdowns that plagued them in recent years — incidents such as the state Department of Health and Environmental Control’s botched response to a hepatitis outbreak, the state’s unemployment agency running out of money or huge increases in deaths of children under the supervision of the Department of Social Services.
But the new administrative department won’t be a system-wide guard, as the House and Senate will give oversight the first year to a handful of agencies apiece as both chambers roll out respective styles of oversight and work out the bugs in public
As the years go by, both chambers expect to be able to tackle more and larger agencies — and to better define what falls under its purview. Questions abound, such as, “Do the state’s 34 colleges count as a state agencies?” which could balloon the potential number of agencies for oversight to more than 200.
In the near term
In the first year, the Senate will focus on the departments of Employment and Workforce, and Mental Health, as well as the Forestry Commission, the State Museum, the Administrative Law Court and the Office on Aging.
The House will focus on the Office of Comptroller General, First Steps and the Departments of Juvenile Justice, Transportation and Social Services.
The Senate will rely initially on a three-man staff anchored by Assistant Clerk Kenneth Moffitt, who will be assisted by staffers with experience on the Legislative Audit Council. That team will report and assign agencies and issues to respective committees and subcommittees in the Senate for debate and investigation.
In the House where there is a higher ratio of representatives to staffers, House Speaker Jay Lucas (R-Darlington) formed a new standing committee. A relative newcomer, second-term Rep. Weston Newton (R-Bluffton), will chair the 20-member House Legislative Oversight Committee.
What’s ahead
But the scope of work, differences in structure between the two chambers or plodding pace won’t be the biggest hurdle for legislative oversight, according to state Sen. Vincent Sheheen (D-Camden), who was the primary force behind its creation.
“It all depends on how hard the legislators are willing to work,” said Sheheen, who challenged Gov. Nikki Haley in the past two gubernatorial elections. “What we’ve tried to do with [the Restructuring Act of 2014] is to change the culture of state government, which has been on autopilot.”
Haley has been “missing in action,” said Sheheen, still sounding like a candidate, but adding that the legislature “hasn’t paid attention, either” to ongoing problems at agencies like Social Services, DHEC, DEW and others.
“State government is a disaster right now,” said Sheheen, who worries the tough, “non-headline-grabbing” good governance that’s needed to make legislative oversight effective in South Carolina will be overshadowed by legislators opting out and making short-term political decisions.
Newton agreed that his committee needed to not be a “political” committee. He said he has stressed that involvement on it will demand consistent, disciplined and year-round work from its members, especially the first year of implementation
So far, the House oversight committee has met in full committee three times this year. Newton said he knows that the hard block and tackling work that went into establishment of reporting guidelines isn’t going to turn heads or excite readers.
But getting the structure right, no matter how seemingly pedantic, is crucial to the state realizing the fruits of oversight in the coming decades, Newton stressed. So far, he said, state agencies have responded to his committee’s efforts with 63 of the 66 agencies already having returned requested audit-style information.
With potentially more than 200 state agencies on the books, Newton said he knows it’s going to be a slog. But he said he hopes the reward will be worth it — a set of best practices that will result in better state government for citizens receiving its services.
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