The General Assembly this year mandated state agencies to send it 153 new reports to go with the hundreds it required, and the House Republican leaderis wondering whether it?s going overboard.
Some reports are directly related to the 34 new boards, commissions, task forces and advisory councils created in the last session, added to the hundreds more of similar bodies on the books. Another 170 financial reports must be sent to the budget committees.
“We?re tasking state government with large expenditures of funds,” House Minority Leader Anthony O?Donnell, R-Calvert, told the Legislative Policy Committee.
Typically, the legislature?s fiscal analyst says the new reports can be handled with existing staff, O?Donnell said, but “when you look at the totality of the list,” a lot of money clearly is being spent.
O?Donnell told the committee, made up of the leaders and chairmen of the House and Senate, to “craft some policy,” so the legislature is not making state agencies file an excessive amount of paperwork.
“It?s a point well taken,” said Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, D-Calvert and Prince George?s.
Karl Aro, the head of Legislative Services who supervises the legislature?s nonpartisan staff, agreed but said, “Generally, the committees are not asking for something that they don?t think is needed.”
The mandated reports include one the adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard must submit on troops killed or injured while on active duty and another by the Public Service Commission and Department of Business and Economic Development on telephone service over the Internet.
Five new reports are demanded from the Office of Cemetery Oversight over the next three years to see whether the legislature wants to keep the office alive. It was scheduled to go out of business July 1.
Legislative analysts, Aro?s employees, often request the reports, said Sen. Patrick Hogan, vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.
“It?s coming more from the analysts,” saidHogan, D-Montgomery. “We tried cutting back,” without much success.
“It?s taxing our resources for sure,” Miller said.
