By Morgan Chilson, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate Committee on Government Efficiency dug through hundreds of online submissions Tuesday and set an agenda for the coming months tackling issues from transparency to auditing.
The meeting agenda, released Monday, said committee members would discuss suggestions received through the COGE portal, where Kansans were encouraged to share ideas to make the government more efficient.
Erickson said 3,254 submissions were made to date, with topics ranging from specific ideas about government efficiency to people who were venting frustrations. There also were a few recipes, she said.
She has read all the submissions and with the help of committee staff had winnowed the number for consideration to 349 “COGE-like submissions,” Erickson said.
The committee agreed that submissions that might not fit the COGE mission could be passed along to state agencies or others who could address the issues.
“How are we going to carve this bird today? That’s the $64,000 question. There are submissions that deal with local and federal,” Erickson said. “Our focus is not to deal with those one-offs that I would call more constituent services, someone who has a specific issue. But are there patterns?”
Setting aside those that didn’t fall into the COGE focus left the committee with 349 submissions to consider. Erickson stressed that all committee members have access to the 3,000-plus submissions received and could add topics at any time.
“Identify tangible ideas,” she said. “We want to look for things that are possibilities to take up during our next legislative session. You can start to see some themes, some natural groupings.”
To get an idea of the time involved and how to best work through the emails, the committee took about 30 minutes to look through 40 pages of submissions and then began discussions of what issues might be appropriate for COGE to consider. Eventually, they considered all 349 submissions.
The result? The committee will discuss the following broad topics in order of importance:
As the committee reached agreement on overall categories to explore, members also looked at what would put teeth into what they’re doing.
“We’ve got to identify it, and we’ve got to rectify it,” Erickson said. She also said she’d like to consider how to incentivize state agencies to become more efficient.
Sen. Larry Alley, R-Winfield, said the committee needs to consider how to enforce its work.
“If we don’t put some type of penalty in there — and usually the agencies or the other groups don’t respond unless it’s taking care of their money — if you penalize them in some way for not doing their job, then they will correct it,” he said. “But if you don’t, they’re not going to correct it. You need some teeth, and that teeth usually goes with what we only have up here and that’s the only thing we have, is a budget process of money.”
Erickson agreed that accountability will be a factor in the committee’s work.
“What would that look like as we identify efficiencies or waste? What was the term someone used, identify and rectify? I like that,” she said. “What does that rectify part look like to me? That’s the accountability, the teeth that we’re talking about.”
Sen. Doug Shane, a Louisburg Republican, said accountability could look like training.
“We tie in whatever the legislative expectations are, as far as monitoring for waste and bloat or what have you, and come up with some very clear legislative guidelines, statutory guidelines that if they aren’t followed, that maybe the quote, unquote punishment is we’re going to be trained on efficient and ethical spending of taxpayer funds,” he said.
The committee agreed it would start in June by digging into the top two priorities with three agencies: the Kansas Department for Children and Families; the Kansas judicial branch, including include local sheriffs and other law enforcement agencies; and the Kansas Department of Labor.
Sen. Mike Thompson, a Johnson County Republican, said he wants the agencies to bring ideas on creating efficiencies.
“I don’t want the agency to come and tell us why they can’t do something,” he said. “I want them to come with ideas, and I think that needs to be our big focus.”
