The Bad, the Good and the Questionable about the "Boards Bill."

You cannot dispute the fact North Carolina’s leaders have not spent enough time reviewing and revising state government. We’ve devoted more time to adding to and less time paring from so it is totally reasonable and desirable for our legislature to consider the makeup of boards and commissions.

Senate Bill 10 was a comprehensive attempt to reform the process and for that they deserve credit. There are three bad elements of SB10.  Sadly, their efforts were done behind closed doors and there was little public input. To be sure interest groups would have lobbied strongly for the continuation of or elimination of their interests, but at least we would have had knowledge of what was being discussed. Government that is not transparent is suspect. Secondly, their bill does away with a great deal of institutional and historical memory when it fires those currently appointed. Our third objection concerns fairness. When members of these boards, especially the Utilities Commission and Industrial Commission, were appointed, they were given prescribed terms and short of misconduct in office or gross misconduct by an entire board it seems only fair to enact new laws prospectively, following the expiration of terms by current members.

Having raised those objections there are some good things involved in the reforms of boards and commissions. For one thing we need to periodically review the need, effectiveness, relevance, size and composition of appointed boards to make sure they properly serve us today. A classic example can be found with the Utilities Commission.

During the Arab Oil Embargo in the 1970’s, energy prices were highly volatile and public utilities including bus, power, telephone and other companies suddenly faced huge fluctuations in their costs. According to state statutes they flooded the Utilities Commission with rate hike requests, each request requiring a hearing to determine the relevance and size of increases. The Commission, as then constituted, consisted of five Commissioners and they were swamped in trying to read and hear reams of data and material involved in the rate hearings. Our legislature wisely increased the number of Commissioners from five to seven members and until energy prices stabilized those seven were kept busy.

But we don’t face those same circumstances today, yet our legislature has never returned to five Commissioners, a number that would adequately serve us now. Savings could be as much as half a million dollars with that reduction.

It is also relevant to consider how these boards are being appointed. It is no secret that no Utilities Commissioner will be appointed who doesn’t first gain approval from the big utility companies and this has resulted in potential conflicts of interest. If you closely examine the makeup of this commission you quickly realize there are many who were just pure political appointments, friends of the governor who would muster utility approval. It would just make sense that if we are going to regulate utility companies we should have people who have some interest in, experience with or knowledge and/or interest in utilities. And we should remove the potential “fox guarding the henhouse” conflict of allowing utility companies to have final say over appointments.

It is further relevant to review the Industrial Commission, the group that considers workers compensation lawsuits. They function much like administrative law judges, dealing with highly complicated legal issues, and while it is desirable to have the public represented the real truth is these commissioners should be attorneys. The House legislation would speak to that concern.

Democrats are framing this as a “power grab” but there is precedence, on a much smaller scale, for eliminating boards. Back in the 1980's they totally eliminated the Wildlife Resources Commission and reconstituted it the next day.  The argument that current actions are purely political doesn’t wash because the truth is that all appointments are selected by elected officials and are, as such, political.

The boards bill does remove some of the governor’s appointments and share them with the legislature. This is probably a good idea but if we are in for a penny, we should be in for a pound and include the appointments of the State Board of Education and the UNC Board of Governors, among others.

Objective evaluation would say the concept of reviewing and revising boards and commissions is valuable. But lawmakers need to ensure the process is transparent and fair.