Commission to Study the Management of State Government records

The General Assembly created the 23-member Commission in 1989 to conduct a comprehensive study of state government. The commission had a budget of $4 million for staff and consultants. Governor William A. O'Neill appointed DeRoy C. Thomas, president of ITT Corp. as chair. Thomas had chaired an earlier study commission on restructuring the state's higher education system whose recommendations had strongly impressed the Governor. The rest of the membership consisted of political appointees, state budget and personnel officials, members of the General Assembly and their appointees. Mary Polci, an OPM planning analyst, was the project's executive director.

By the end of the Commission's work in early 1991, the consultants' reports filled two legal size file drawers and claimed proposed savings of more than $500 million a year. Two members, John Olsen, president of the State AFL-CIO and Rep Linda Emmons, R-Madison, complained that most consultants ignored the mandate to suggest ways to improve state services and focused exclusively on cutting expenditures or raising revenue. Others complained that the savings projections were overblown. Chairman Thomas said it didn't matter whether the state achieved the exact amount of savings just that the recommendations improved state operations and produced some savings.

Aside from the specific cost cutting and revenue enhancement recommendations for existing agencies, the Commission called for the creation of an independent agency to centralize information technology functions and the appointment of a chief operating officer to handle the day-to-day oversight of state agencies. The Commission also made a number of controversial recommendations concerning state aid to towns in the areas of education grants, teacher retirement, property tax relief, and statutory grants and regarding personnel policies and administration. The Commission also called for a return to biennial budgeting. It also recommended expansion of privatization of services, purchasing instead of constructing new buildings, and development of new attitudes concerning delivery of state services and what those services should be in every branch and at every level of state government.