Sunset candidates
Here is a sampling of the more than 200 boards and commissions that a new state committee will review and consider abolishing:
Agriculture License Plate Scholarship Fund Board
Barber Board
Cosmetology Board
Broadcast Educational Media Commission
County Sheriff’s Standard Car Marking and Uniform Commission
Geology Advisory Council
Grain Marketing Program Operating Committee
Grape Industries Committee
Intergovernmental Council and Advisory Panel of the Lupus Educational and Awareness Program
Advisory Committee on Livestock Exhibitions
Milk Sanitation Board
Optical Dispensers Board
Organized Crime Investigations Commission
Thoroughbred Racing Advisory Committee
Standardbred Development Commission
A state commission created to identify unneeded and redundant boards and commissions has yet to hold a meeting nine months into its two-year term.
Under the state law that created it, the Ohio Sunset Review Committee was supposed to start meeting in February to begin reviewing more than 200 boards and weed out those that serve little or no purpose.
But the review commission isn’t even fully formed. The Ohio House appointed its three members and the Senate appointed three. But Ohio Gov. John Kasich has yet to name any of his three appointees.
“We look forward to making appointments to the Sunset Review Commission and working to address the overabundance of boards that are often duplicative,” said Kasich spokesman Jim Lynch, who wouldn’t provide a date by which the posts will be filled.
“We will not simply make an appointment for the sake of checking a box. Instead, we want to ensure that the people appointed can take a clean, unbiased look at the system and have the right strengths to add value to this important task.”
Boards and commissions included in the review range from the defunct War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission to the Public Utilities Commission with its multi-million dollar budget and six-figure boardmember pay. They also include entities such as the Milk Sanitation Board, the License Plate Safety Task Force and the Cemetery Dispute Resolution Commission.
“It’s a problem that (the committee) hasn’t met,” said Greg Lawson, policy director for the conservative Buckeye Institute. “It should meet as soon as possible and we should get all the people appointed. It is an important function. It needs to get done.”
Different boards
Lawmakers from both parties said they aren’t sure what the hold-up is, but they’re eager to get to work.
“Certainly it would be better for us to utilize the full two years to do our due diligence rather than rush the process,” said state Sen. Capri Cafaro, D-Hubbard. “I would hope we would be convening at some point in the near future.”
Cafaro sat on the last sunset review committee, which also got a late start. It met from November 2009 to May 2010 and led to the abolishment of 85 boards and commissions, saving the state $6.7 million.
“It is a somewhat laborious process, people do come in and testify and we have to weigh a lot of factors, so we don’t want to be rushed.”
There are several boards that special interest groups have long-fought to preserve, though some see them as redundant. Ohio has a barber board with a $670,000 budget as well as a cosmetology board with a $3.5 million budget. There is a state board of optometry with a $347,000 budget and a state optical dispensers board with a $366,000 budget.
This year’s state budget eliminated the Quarter Horse Development Commission, but left separate advisory committees on thoroughbred racing and standardbred racing under the Ohio Racing Commission.
“It’s not a duplication of effort because they’re two different breeds,” said Racing Commission Chairman Bob Schmitz. “They deal with two different types of racing.”
Schmitz noted that the advisory board members aren’t paid, and the budget they oversee comes from a parimutuel tax and casino revenue.
This is the kind of feedback lawmakers hope to consider soon, according to state Rep. Ron Amstutz, R-Wooster, who sits on the sunset committee.
“My experience has been that most of the boards and commissions exist because there is a constituency that feels that they add value to our state,” he said.
“The goal is not to find out how many can we shut down, but it is to shut down those that outlived their useful life … and to combine those that can more efficiently serve in a different configuration.”
Body shop board
While committee members say it’s too early to start targeting boards, Lawson with the Buckeye Institute said low-hanging fruit includes numerous overlapping minority affairs boards and the Ohio Motor Vehicle Repair Board.
Lawson said the state already has consumer protection investigators at the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, and other entities rank the quality of businesses.
“Do we really need a separate investigatory body?” he said.
The Ohio Motor Vehicle Repair Board registers and inspects roughly 1,500 auto body shops — not mechanics — and conducts about 150 investigations a year.
“The legitimate shop that opens up, puts up a sign, has hours, pays their taxes, pays their workers compensation can’t get undercut by someone in a back alley making repairs,” said agency director Mike Greene on why the board is needed. “It brings everybody up to the same level.”
Greene said the board’s $487,000 budget comes from license fees and fines on businesses, not the state budget. He said folding the work his agency does into another department would be a mistake because “you’d have to know something about the business or something about the industry to know what shops need to have (various types of) permits.”
State Rep. Tim Brown, R-Bowling Green, said the delayed start for the sunset committee allowed the General Assembly to accomplish some of the committee’s goals in the state budget.
“That was a little bit of a weed-out process there (to determine) what we are still funding and what we are not,” said Brown, who is on the committee.
The state budget also created a so-called “Grace Commission” that is supposed to start meeting in September and will have eight months to review last year’s state expenditures and find places to possibly save money. Lawmakers insist this board is not ironically redundant to the sunset review committee.
But it wouldn’t be unheard of for a board to not accomplish its goal. The last General Assembly created a task force that was supposed to inventory state-owned property and make sure it’s all being put to best use. That committee was supposed to issue a report in September 2014, but never did.
House Minority Leader Rep. Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton, sat on the previous sunset committee and said it has important work to do.
“I think the board serves a useful purpose, particularly in an environment where people are concerned about whether government is efficient,” he said. “I think the most important thing would be to get it on track.”
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