There is legislation pending at the General Assembly that should have been passed a year ago. Let us hope it fares better this year as the halls of the State House heat up during the next few months.
The measure in question is sitting in the House Committee on Corporations. It would define a quasi-public agency, compile and organize the laws governing the agencies, and establish a legislative oversight commission to review how they are operating.
The Senate approved identical legislation in 2001, after Sen. J. Michael Lenihan, an East Greenwich Democrat, proposed it.
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Lenihan crafted the measure after becoming rightfully incensed in the wake of a credit card controversy at the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-public state agency. That controversy preceded another, in which the same agency was criticized for the way it released information about a mercury spill in a building at Quonset Point.
Now the proposal is back, this time in the form of a House bill sponsored by Tony Pires, a Pawtucket Democrat and candidate for governor.
The purpose of the bill, according to Pires, is to make Rhode Island’s nearly two-dozen quasi-public agencies more accountable to the state’s taxpayers.
If there are occasions in state government when more accountability is a bad idea, I’d be curious to hear about them.
Our government sector is represented by nearly two-dozen quasi-public agencies. In addition to the Economic Development Corporation, quasi-public agencies include the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, the Rhode Island Lottery and the Board of Governors for Higher Education.
The bill now pending at the State House is designed to “establish clear and certain lines of responsibility for the quasi-public agencies in the state, and a definitive means of accountability by those agencies to the people of Rhode Island.”
It is indeed puzzling that Rhode Island currently has no definition of a quasi-public corporation or agency. Pires says the quasi-publics mentioned above and others “operate under a mish-mash of rules and regulations.”
The legislation submitted by Lenihan and Pires would put some much-needed rules in place. First, it would define for the record a quasi-public agency or corporation. Next, it would take the various state laws that now apply to those agencies and incorporate them into one definitive, written set of rules and regulations.
According to a statement released by both lawmakers; “As government programs and services, over the years, have shifted from the executive branch to quasi-public agencies, each with its own operating procedure, it has become difficult for the public to understand how they are operating and to whom or how they are accountable.”
The legislation would also create a 15-member commission, including the Auditor General, that would be responsible for reviewing the operation of each particular agency once every four years and consequently issue recommendations relative to the agency’s efficiency, effectiveness and accountability.
Historically, quasi-public agencies have argued that such status is important when it comes to recruiting employees and negotiating contracts. They point out that they must answer to a board of directors several times each year.
But flexibility in such areas exists anyway, and if special circumstances need to be addressed, an oversight commission could address them – while keeping the public’s best interests in mind.
What is critically important is that the public has confidence in these state agencies — which have grown to employ hundreds and through which millions of tax dollars flow each and every year.
“Without clearly written rules and without oversight, they could drift from that mission through inefficiency or mismanagement,” said Pires.
Rules can take some getting used to. Answering to the boss can be uncomfortable sometimes. But accountability breeds success. And Rhode Island’s quasi-public agencies and organizations should not shy away from more rules, and more accountability – and ultimately, a higher degree of success.
