Stateline has an article today about various efforts to reorganize state agencies, looking specifically at Kansas, Michigan, and Washington.   The section on Washington addresses the consolidation of certain back-office functions that passed as part of the budget this year:

The proposal is expected to save the state $18 million and eliminate 95 full-time employees. Stan Marshburn, deputy director of the Office of Financial Management, says there are other strategic benefits that are hard to quantify. “Those are the savings that we think we know, but they’re not the total sum,” Marshburn says. For example, the new structure is intended to create a stronger capacity for information technology planning and coordinating bulk purchasing across state government. 

Five agencies that service internal government operations are being consolidated into three. A new 1,200-person Office of Enterprise Services will pull together most transactional functions that are required to keep state government running internally, from human resources management to printing and accounting. The other remaining agencies, the Office of Financial Management and a new Consolidated Technology Services agency, will be able to concentrate on higher-level planning, oversight and policy setting across state government. 

Gregoire has put forward a number of reorganization proposals in the past, and has succeeded in eliminating numerous boards and commissions over the years as a way to cut costs. This, however, is by far the most significant restructuring to make it through the state legislature. 

Marshburn believes that the severity of the state’s budget situation and the internal government nature of the changes being proposed helped the proposal’s chances in the legislature. Government functions that interact directly with citizens tend to have vocal constituencies that make even minor organizational changes politically difficult to pull off.  As Marshburn puts it, “This created a better framework to have the discussion.”

The changes made in the budget are:

• IT policy oversight is moved from the Department of Information Services (DIS) to the Office of Financial Management (OFM).
• The Information Services Division, Risk Management Division, Contracts Office, and Small Agency Client Services are transferred from OFM to the new Department of Enterprise Services (DES).
• The Department of Personnel is transferred to OFM (except its human resource functions that serve state agencies–they transfer to DES).
• The Public Printer is transferred to DES.
• The Department of General Administration merges into DES.
• DIS administrative, budget, finance, communications, contract services, human resources, agency internal IT, legal services and procurement transfer to DES.
• IT delivery is transferred from DIS to the new Consolidated Technology Services Agency.