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San
Jose Mercury-News State reform plan bears tech imprint Pro-Business Forces Had Big Influence By Ann E.
Marimow SACRAMENTO - When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's team of advisers unveils a long-awaited government reform package today, it will have the stamp of two libertarian think tanks and some of California's most prominent high-tech businesses. Among those the advisers consulted were Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems, along with Sacramento lobbyists and government officials from California and more than a half-dozen other states. Those who helped included three San Jose high school principals. The recommendations to make government more user-friendly and efficient are supposed to save the state $32 billion over five years. Even before the formal presentation, Democrats are questioning that amount and the influence of business interests who helped shape the secretly drawn plan to dramatically overhaul state government. ``It should have been in the open,'' Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, said at a Capitol press conference Monday. ``That they didn't share it with anyone but business is indicative of the type of people that did it. They obviously had a bias toward people in business.'' But perhaps no outside groups made more of an imprint than two think tanks with free-market bents: the Reason Foundation of Los Angeles and the Performance Institute of San Diego. Although the five-month government study was conducted behind closed doors and the state workers involved were sworn to secrecy, officials from those two groups had easy access to the people making decisions. George Passantino of the Reason Foundation served as one of the directors of the top-to-bottom government review, working on site in Sacramento with 275 state employees. ``It's certainly very refreshing for us to see some of those concepts we've talked about get some traction,'' said Passantino, a former aide to a Republican Assembly member. Both Passantino and Performance Institute President Carl DeMaio have been advising Schwarzenegger since he announced his candidacy for governor and have played an integral role in the review. Many of the recommendations in the 2,500-page review of government embrace suggestions those groups initially made in spring 2003 in an alternative California state budget package. Schwarzenegger's staff even handed out more than 200 copies of the so-called ``Citizens' Budget'' they co-wrote. Like Schwarzenegger's reform team, the ``Citizens' Budget'' proposed consolidating state agencies, eliminating some state boards, providing services on the Internet and writing state budgets every two years instead of annually. DeMaio, whose ideas on recruiting state workers are quoted in the report, is also an adviser to President Bush's budget office and was a budget strategist for former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Capitol Hill. DeMaio praised the team's work Monday. ``If we were provocative in offering an alternative vision, what they've done is come up with a plan to implement it,'' he said. The overhaul envisioned in the plan would create 11 new super-agencies and eliminate 118 boards or commissions. The proposal -- obtained last week by the Mercury News -- contains more than 1,000 recommendations, some of which Schwarzenegger can enact on his own. Others will need to be approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature, which has given the plan a lukewarm reception. Bob Martinez, a spokesman for the review, said the work reflects not just recommendations from the think tanks, but also contributions from nearly 2,000 individuals from business, government and academia. The research was conducted in secret because of time constraints, he said, and the public will have plenty of opportunity to comment in a series of hearings. But there were varying degrees of input from those considered contributors, according to interviews with people acknowledged in the report. Bill Magavern, a lobbyist with the Sierra Club identified as providing input, said, ``Contributor may be stretching it a bit.'' Magavern was invited to attend one meeting in April to suggest ways to improve the state's environmental agencies. He was never asked about the report's recommendations to abolish state boards that regulate air and water quality. If anyone had asked, he said Monday, ``we would have raised concerns about public participation. It looks like they are going the other way.'' Barbara Lepiane, principal of San Jose's Pioneer High School, said she also attended at least one meeting with the governor's advisers on education. While the Sierra Club and Lepiane had one meeting, some businesses had more opportunities for input. Grant Easton, a consultant with Hewlett-Packard, said he met five or six times with the governor's advisers to offer advice about its merger with Compaq and the lessons the state could draw ``as they look to merge some of their departments.'' The California Manufacturers and Technology Association had several conversations with the governor's advisers about tax exemptions.
Contact
Ann E. Marimow at amarimow@mercurynews.com or (916) 325-4315.
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