A Look at Some “Government Efficiencies” in Jerry Brown’s Two Budgets

On page 9 of the Summary of the budget signed by Gov. Jerry brown on June 27, he listed as an accomplishment “eliminating over 50 boards, commissions, task forces, offices and departments.” 

The list below, compiled by Brown’s Department of Finance, shows what’s been eliminated or consolidated. A number of the entities are advisory bodies, whose members are not compensted.

Some, like the Electronic Funds Transfer Task Force and the American Recovery and Reinviestment Act Task Froce completed their work several years ago but their names stayed on the books. 

Others, like the Division of Labor Statistics will continue to do the work they have done but be subsumed within other divisions, in this case, within the Department of Industrial Relations.

Several of the departments on the list are consolidated with others as part of the Democratic governor’s reorganization plan, approved with some modest changes by the Legislature July 2 and set to take effect July 1, 2013.

The Brown administration says streamlining the delivery of government services is the goal, not budget-balancing but estimates some $10 million in savings.