Consolidating the state’s highway taxing authorities, creating a new state accountability office and revisiting last year’s attempt to deregulate several professions were among ideas suggested by a task force charged with finding additional cost savings in state government.
The 15-member Florida Government Efficiency Task Force met Monday to offer suggestions on how the state can save $3 billion over the next four years.
It is charged with delivering a set of recommendations to the Legislature in time for the next legislative session, which begins in January.
The general consensus of task force members, who were appointed by either Florida’s Republican governor or the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, was that state government agencies and other programs that receive state support should be run more like private companies and are too bloated and inefficient.
Even though most agencies have undergone budget cuts in the past four years, Chair Abe Uccello said there are still cost savings to be found.
“We’ve got to come up with suggestions and ideas for how we can change that ‘spend it or lose it’ philosophy,” said former House Speaker Larry Cretul. “That is going to be very important.”
The task force was created in 2007 and meets every four years with five members appointed each by the governor, Senate president and House speaker. This year’s task force had its first meeting last month.
Monday’s meeting marked the first time task force members offered specific money-saving ideas.
Some of the suggestions include:
• Requiring year-round instruction at colleges and universities.
• Streamlining how the state solicits and accepts bids from outside contractors.
• Using Web-based tools to study sentencing and offer risk assessments of prisoners.
• Reducing the number of rules and regulations promulgated by state agencies.
• A limit on the number of state employees per capita.
• More transparency of the budget process.
• Keeping a database of state-owned properties to see what valuable state property could be sold.
• Privatizing state-run entities such as Citizen’s Property Insurance.
• Eliminating the Florida pension system and shift to a 401(k)-style defined contribution system.
Task force member Rob Wallace, a former state representative, said state agencies don’t think about cost savings.
“When money was available, state agencies would grab it,” Wallace said.
He urged lawmakers to adopt a “one-percent management challenge” and ask for all state agencies to cut 1 percent of their budget to “instill a temperament to reduce operating costs.”
Task force members acknowledged they are asking state agencies to transition from focusing on a mission, such as protecting the environment, as is the case with the Department of Environmental Protection, to be-coming more focused on the bottom line in a way that private companies have long been focused.
“We don’t have anybody that comes in and performs a cost-benefit analysis,” said Patrick Neal, who was appointed to the task force by Senate President Mike Haridopolos and was a state senator in the 1970s and 1980s.
Uccello, who chairs the committee, said the group will winnow down the list offered Monday that includes dozens of recommended cost savings into three or four suggestions in time for the legislative session.
The next meeting will focus on the suggestion to consolidate state highway taxing authorities.