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Hearings on Separation of Powers and Legislative Oversight

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. Today’s agenda. Separation of Powers and Legislative Oversight

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Hearings on Separation of Powers and Legislative Oversight

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  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. Today’s agenda Separation of Powers and Legislative Oversight • Reply to Requests for Information Posed at Earlier Committee Hearings—Gary Ciminero, Rhode Island House Policy Office • Presentation on Legislative Oversight: Evaluation of Program Performance—Kate 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 Information—Correction 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 Island’s 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 Information—Correction 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 2.46—Lowering our relative staff size to 25th nationally. (See updated chart on next page.)

  6. Legislative Oversight Capacity—2003 Full-Time Staff per Legislator

  7. Reply to Requests for Additional Information—Representative Paul W. Crowley (continued) INFORMATION on PROFESSIONAL STAFF COMPARISONS ACROSS STATES • NCSL also has data on Professional Legislative Staff by State—see next slide • On this fairer basis, Rhode Island ranks even better—with 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 Capacity—2003 Full-Time Professional Staff per Legislator

  9. Reply to Requests for Additional Information—Representative Paul W. Crowley (continued) INFORMATION on PROFESSIONAL STAFF COMPARISONS--continued • Based on a better measure, Full-time professional staff per bill enacted—with 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 Capacity—2003 Full-Time Professional Staff per Bill Passed

  11. Reply to Requests for Additional Information—Representative 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 Staff—we 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 Information—Representative 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 STATES—see next slide.

  13. Legislative Oversight Capacity—2003 Full-Time Professional Staff per Capita

  14. Reply to Requests for Additional Information—Representative 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 Information—Representative 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 UNDERWAY—AS SUGGESTED BY REPRESENTATIVE TIMOTHY A. WILLIAMSON

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