Utah’s part-time 104 legislators are overworked.
That’s the overall conclusion by their internally elected leaders Wednesday as the Legislative Management Committee members considered how many meetings lawmakers will be expected to attend this coming interim study time – May through November.
In one instance, instead of four formal budget committee meetings this year, there will only be three – and maybe even just two for some committees, depending on how committee members feel.
And any number – not specified – of boards and commissions lawmakers now sit upon should be eliminated, the leaders said.
“I’ve got commission and board fatigue in my body, whether (senators) are paid or not” for their board work, said Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy.
“I’m pleading with this (LMC), if you approve more (paid) meetings (for legislators) this year, let’s get rid of about a third of these” boards and commissions that current legislators are asked to sit on by their leaders, he added.
But, perhaps in typical legislative manner, the legislative leaders on the LMC ultimately voted to add 10 MORE task forces, boards and commissions to the list of 119 such bodies that lawmakers are assigned to attend – with a promise that someone, somehow, will vet the now 129 boards and commissions upon which one or more lawmakers are assigned to sit.
Last interim, the Government Operations Interim Study Committee reviewed the number of boards and commissions that require a legislative member, or two, or three, or four.
And, in the end, the committee recommended that five of the assignments should be revoked.
Legislators did that in a special bill in the 2018 general session.
But in the same session, lawmakers approved 10 new task forces or boards and commissions upon which one or more legislators must sit.
Five steps forward, 10 steps back – as far as new demands on lawmakers’ time.
Now, in most cases – but not all – legislators are paid their daily wage and per diem (which is a rather small recompense for mileage and such) to attend board meetings.
House Majority Whip Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, who is a big man, said cutting five commissions from lawmakers’ duty “is like me not eating one cupcake. It is a start (to losing weight), but barely.”
He went on to lament the number of task forces or commissions set up to study this or that issue.
“We are just pacifying people” with task forces, he said. “Hell, we study stuff to death.”
“We need to get (legislators) out of these committees. It’s not even the money (paid to lawmakers to attend them); it’s the time. I’m befuddled” by the 119 – no, now 129 – committees that legislators are assigned to.
Leaders decided to have their caucuses – Republican and Democratic, House and Senate – discuss which committees lawmakers are sitting on that are worth the time, money and effort.
The caucuses – with input from members who sit on a specific committee — can decide which committees are worthwhile, and which are not, said Senate Minority Whip Karen Mayne, D-West Valley.
A year ago, Niederhauser and House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, pushed LMC to approve four meetings for the joint budget subcommittees.
Both men talked then about “deep dives” into agency budgets in the interim so lawmakers would be better prepared to make some cuts to base budgets in the 2018 Legislature.
However, both Niederhauser and Hughes aren’t seeking re-election to their seats this year – and they won’t be running the 2019 Legislature.
And last session lawmakers had half a billion dollars in new tax revenue surpluses to spend or return to citizens – so there was little “cutting” of base budgets with such surpluses, in any case.
Complaints were heard Tuesday that some of last year’s interim budget meetings weren’t worth the time and effort.
Several of the committees took “one-issue” field trips last year, noted Hughes.
He said if such field trips were taken this spring, summer and fall, he believed they should be in addition to the now-three scheduled meetings on Capitol Hill during interim days.
Finally, the leaders approved a long list of interim study committee items.
Some of the interim committees will look at more than a dozen issues, others only two or three.
It used to be that the LMC closely controlled what items the interim committees could study. But with little fanfare, lawmakers adopted HJR16 last session.
And, among other things, it says that individual committee chairmen and chairwomen, with a majority vote of their members, can decide to study issues in the interim.
This gives a lot more power to the interim committees themselves – a throwback to 25 or 30 years ago when then-powerful interim committee chairs could decide to study just one or two items in depth between general sessions – with the likelihood that committee decisions could be forced upon the next Legislature.
