Hearings on Separation of Powers and Legislative Oversight

1
Hearings on Separation of Powers and Legislative
Oversight

• Presentation
• Gary Ciminero, Rhode Island House Policy Office
• Before the
• House Committee on Separation of Powers
• April 21, 2004

2
Todays agenda

• Separation of Powers and Legislative Oversight
• Reply to Requests for Information Posed at
  Earlier Committee HearingsGary Ciminero, Rhode
  Island House Policy Office
• Presentation on Legislative Oversight Evaluation
  of Program PerformanceKate Wade, Program
  Evaluation Director, Wisconsin Legislative Audit
  Bureau

3
Legislative Oversight

• Reply to Requests for Additional Information
• Posed at the 3/10/04 Hearing
• Gary Ciminero
• Rhode Island House Policy Office

4
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationCorrection of RI Staff Count Data

• Recall that at the prior hearing of 3/10,
  rankings from NCSL were based on total full-time
  staff per legislator by state.
• Rhode Islands data was as-of 3/03, at 297
  Legislative Staffers
• This meant that Rhode Island Ranked 23rd at 2.63
  total legislative staffers per legislator

5
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationCorrection of RI Staff Count Data

• Updated/corrected data as of October 2003 for
  Rhode Island has the staff count at 278.4 FTEs.
• Data as of October, compiled by the RI-DOA
  corrects for staff reductions, at the request of
  GA leadership and a corrected number of
  part-timers
• These changes reduce the total by about 19 FTEs
• On this basis, Rhode Island has a
  Staff/Legislator ratio of 2.46Lowering our
  relative staff size to 25th nationally. (See
  updated chart on next page.)

6
Legislative Oversight Capacity2003 Full-Time
Staff per Legislator

•  

7
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationRepresentative Paul W. Crowley
(continued)

• INFORMATION on PROFESSIONAL STAFF COMPARISONS
  ACROSS STATES
• NCSL also has data on Professional Legislative
  Staff by Statesee next slide
• On this fairer basis, Rhode Island ranks even
  betterwith just 103.5 professional staffers it
  has
• Just 1.01 Professional Staffer per Legislator
• Ranking us 30th among the states in relative
  staffing

8
Legislative Oversight Capacity2003 Full-Time
Professional Staff per Legislator

•  

9
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationRepresentative Paul W. Crowley
(continued)

• INFORMATION on PROFESSIONAL STAFF
  COMPARISONS--continued
• Based on a better measure, Full-time professional
  staff per bill enactedwith 518 bills enacted in
  RI in 2002 (see next slide)
• We had just 0.22 professional staffers per bill
• Ranking us 39th, one of the lowest relative
  staffing levels compared with other states.

10
Legislative Oversight Capacity2003 Full-Time
Professional Staff per Bill Passed

•  

11
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationRepresentative Paul W. Crowley
(concluded)

• INFORMATION on PROFESSIONAL STAFF
  COMPARISONS--concluded
• Based on another measure that gives better scope
  to the amount of work needing to be done by
  Legislative Professional Staffwe looked at the
  total number of bills introduced
• With 2767 bills introduced in RI in 2002
• We have has just 0.04 professional staffers per
  introduced bill
• Ranking us 47th, for about the lowest relative
  staffing level compared with other states.

12
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationRepresentative Nicholas Gorham

• INFORMATION on PROFESSIONAL STAFF COMPARISONS
  with State Populations
• BASED ON THE (FLAWED) METRIC OF FULL-TIME STAFF
  PER CAPITA, RI RANKS 2ND
• BASED ON A SOMEWHAT FAIRER (YET FLAWED) METRIC OF
  FULL-TIME PROFESSIONAL STAFF PER CAPITA, RI RANKS
  7TH AMONG THE STATESsee next slide.

13
Legislative Oversight Capacity2003 Full-Time
Professional Staff per Capita

•  

14
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationRepresentative Nicholas Gorham
(continued)

• HOWEVER, COMPARISONS WITH POPULATION SIZE DISTORT
  ANY CONCLUSION ABOUT STAFFING LEVELS
• SINCE POPULATION IS A POOR MEASURE OF THE AMOUNT
  OF LEGISLATIVE ANALYSIS AND OVERSIGHT REQUIRED OF
  THE PROFESSIONAL STAFF.
• BETTER MEASURES ARE THOUSE ALREADY DISCUSSED IN
  THE EARLIER SLIDES.

15
Reply to Requests for Additional
InformationRepresentative Nicholas Gorham
(concluded)

• HOWEVER, COMPARISONS WITH POPULATION SIZE DISTORT
  ANY CONCLUSION ABOUT STAFFING LEVELS
• FOLLOWING THE LOGIC OF PERCAPITA SIZE, WE WOULD
  ERRONEOUSLY CONCLUDE THAT
• MANY OF OUR EXECUTIVE BRANCH DEPARTMENTS ALSO
  HAVE LARGE STAFFING LEVELS RELATIVE TO OTHER
  STATES
• RESEARCH FOR THESE COMPARISONS IS CURRENTLY
  UNDERWAYAS SUGGESTED BY REPRESENTATIVE TIMOTHY
  A. WILLIAMSON