Efficiency panel to review, streamline state spending

CARSON CITY -- Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford said Thursday that he and Assembly leaders will create a legislative efficiency panel that will review state spending, propose ways to streamline operations of state agencies and eliminate those that are not essential.

"This is what every family in Nevada has had to do for the last two years," said Horsford, D-Las Vegas. "They have tightened their belts and eliminated what they can't do anymore. This is work that is necessary and what the people elected us to do."

The six-member efficiency and accountability in state government committee will be named during next Thursday's meeting of the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee.

Horsford said it will be patterned after a committee authorized by state law that operated in the 1990s but was discontinued during Gov. Kenny Guinn's administration.

Members will be expected to make recommendations by Sept. 1 that may be developed into bills that will be considered during the 2011 Legislature.

The majority leader said there is no doubt that state will face a revenue shortfall next year. He previously stated that the state may be more than $3 billion short of what it needs to maintain services at the levels before state spending was cut because of the recession.

Even if there was no revenue problem, Horsford said legislators have a duty to ensure state agencies operate efficiently and do not duplicate services offered by other agencies or local governments.

"We need an honest, open and frank discussion on what government should and should not be doing," he said.

The efficiency panel will do a line-by-line review of spending by selected state agencies, requiring agency directors to justify their current spending and any increases they seek.