HD81 - Funding of Constitutional Officers

  • Published: 1990
  • Author: Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission
  • Enabling Authority: Appropriation Act - Item 13 (Regular Session, 1988)

Executive Summary:
State funding for constitutional officers has dramatically increased in recent years, now amounting to one half billion dollars each biennium. Yet the budgeting and reimbursement process used by the Compensation Board has changed little over the past 50 years.

Item 13 of the 1988 and 1989 Appropriations Acts directed the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to review the funding of constitutional officers. The purpose of the study was to propose a more systematic and equitable funding process for the General Assembly to consider.

The first phase of the JLARC review involved developing staffing standards using statistical models. These models, which are discussed in previous reports in this series, are based on actual staffing levels for all the constitutional offices in the State. The standards developed can be used to objectively determine personnel costs.

This final report presents the General Assembly with a number of different choices for designing a new, systematic approach for funding over 600 constitutional offices. Among the most important of the choices are the share of costs to be borne by the State and the local governments, the use of ability to pay for determining the shares for the local governments, and adoption of a pre-payment system for distributing State funds to the constitutional officers with a required local match. These choices can be used by the General Assembly to develop a more logical framework for funding of constitutional officers that would promote greater equity and accountability. It would be the responsibility of the State Compensation Board to implement the specifics of the framework adopted by the General Assembly.

The issues involved in funding the constitutional officers are complex and controversial, as illustrated by the written response of the Compensation Board included in Appendix F of this report. It will be necessary for the General Assembly to review the proposed funding process in more detail with the Sate Compensation Board, the Constitutional officers, and the local governments. To begin that process of review, Senate Bill 248 was introduced in the 1990 Session of the General Assembly. This legislation, which provides a blueprint for the proposed funding process, can be the starting point for discussions of the staff recommendations.