H.B. 384 Executive Branch Agency Amendments: transcript

I will. Uh, so let me talk about this in the two parts. So the existing bill, I'll talk about first and then I'll talk about what we would like to add in the substitute. So the, the main part of the bill that's before you today, um, is to correct vestiges of shadows of things that never really got squared away back when all of these agencies got combined in the Department of Government operations. Um, the reality is it has worked so well that all of these ideas that some of them have independent authority, they're not really part of the department. They kind of are, but they're kind of not. We're ready for that to just go all the way, all of that. Just go away and say you work for Marvin Dodge, he's the director of Department of Government Operations. And so you're, you're not, you don't, there's not this sort of question about, well, whose job is this really? So some specific example, and Mark can answer questions about this 'cause I don't know all the details, but some of the specifics are clarifying that the Office of Data Privacy is actually part of DGO, but that's not clear from statute clarifying that the department actually is overseeing the vantage system with hr. That there are different areas of the, of the system that think that they own parts of it. The reality is, is that it's owned jointly and it's under leadership of DGO. Um, and, and other sort of cleanup, things like that. One, one of the one I think that I just want to call it to your men, uh, to your attention, because if I don't, and somebody else later calls me on this, I don't want to say that I didn't mention it right now. Statute requires a division of finance to audit all claims against the state. And so that is interpreted to mean that they have to audit every payment and auditing every payment is not functional. You, you can't do that. It just physically can't be done. And that's not how audits are done anyway. They do it using a sampling method. So we want to clarify in the statute that that's, that's the part of it. So, um, that is the first part of the bill and Marv is here to answer questions about that. And then the second part of the bill is the more fun part of the bill. The governor, um, has many people that he appoints to his cabinet and he would like to give them a title. Since Duke and Prince were not, options probably were considered and discarded, um, he has settled on the word commissioner. He would like to refer to them all as commissioners so that when he goes to a cabinet meeting he says, oh, commissioner, Dodge Commissioner, whoever, you know, and just can just call them all. Commissioner doesn't have to keep track of which ones are Dukes and Princes and all that other stuff.

It's free. We have the fiscal note just, just got to my attention and it is free. Um, because it basically is the governor referring to them as commissioners at the governor's will and pleasure. And I don't know that any, well maybe everyone else has to bow and say Commissioner too, but it's not really clear. And Mike Mauer is here to answer questions about the impact of that. If you have any, we've got him right behind us. So with that, and given the pressing time, maybe we'll just call it good for the presentation and, and punt us all to committee questions.

Line 1 25 seems to remove the division of technology services from, uh, payroll. Am I, hopefully I'm reading that wrong.

Yeah, thank you, uh, representative for that question. I'm Marvin Dodge, executive Director of the Department of Government Operations or Duke. I, I prefer Duke over Prince. How's that? Duke. Duke Dodge. Um, That it actually is a little bit misleading. So that's a list of exempted agencies and DTS will use payroll from this point forward in Vantage System. So we're moving them off of that list of exempted agencies. So the Department of Transportation state are, they don't use our payroll system. It, it's kind of, yeah, thanks for the clarification. It's an interesting question. They do use the payroll system, but they have a different front end that they use for their agencies. So some of these particular agencies with a lot of complexity and, and some outside of the executive branch have, have a different face that they use to enter data into the payroll system. The check and tracking the payroll is actually still done by Vantage, uh, when that system is live. Thank you.

One more question if I made Mr. Chair, we, we currently have transportation com commissioners, we have Department of Alcoholic Beverage and Services commissioners, I believe. Won't there be some confusion if it's, this is kind of like, you know, the the, what's the movie where it's doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, if, if, if the head of the agency is the commissioner and then they also are reporting to commissioners. Won't that be some ever wanna be? Commissioner, commissioner, commissioner, commissioner.

The, the, our primary goal is to make sure they have a consistent title. It, um, we now have

Oh, Mike Mauer from, uh, the governor's office. Right now, two thirds of our cabinet heads are referred to as executive director. A third our commissioner. Uh, some of those have a historical reason for that. Uh, and in looking around the country, people either refer to them as commissioners or secretaries, but the governor would like some consistency. For years we've had that confusion are, for example, we have Joel Ferry, who's the executive director of Department of Natural Resources. But then you have Kelly, who's the, the, uh, commissioner of Kelly Pearson, the Commissioner of Agriculture. So the goal is just to get some consistency there. Is there, there can be there. We may need to look at making changes to some of those that are board appointments. Um, but we would like our cabinet heads to have one consistent, um, one consistent name.

So, so everybody who's a cabinet member will now be commissioner. Does that mean I have to call the adjunct general commissioner to Ooh, He gets a special title all his own. Okay. So, all right. I figured he did. Thanks.

Alright, thank you. Um, Mr. Chair. No, my, my question's really simple. I know there's no fiscal known on here, but it seems like if you're adding a division to additional oversight, I'm just wondering, is that not gonna increase any costs?

So, so the, everything that is currently happening is now reflected in the statute. So there are no actual changes in practice. It's like all of the stuff where DGO is just clarifying. Um, and I think to, to some extent there might be a perceived savings because they don't have to quote unquote audit every claim for payment. But basically we are putting their current practice into statute. So there is no real change to the actual cost of things.

So they are already subject to oversight right now in practice?

Yeah, in practice. Thank you.

But not, but not in law or in theory.

Um, uh, there's a substitute online with the sponsor, one that adopted. Yes. Um, I make a motion that we adopt first sub to HB 3 84.

Bill? Just, just to be clarify, if you don't want the governor calling people Commissioner, you vote no against this motion.

But I think it's a great, it's, it's actually, I mean, it's helpful because for me, executive director has always been problematic because we got so many directors, there's directors of finance, director of hr, director of this, director of that. And so remembering that they're an executive director versus a regular director, you know, it's kind of like in the army you got the major generals and the Brigadier generals and keeping all of that straight for me, as is hard. But there's a, there is a difference. It's just hard to keep it track, keep track of that all in your mind. So we're just gonna clarify and call 'em something completely different.

I'd like to make a motion that we favorably recommend HB 3 84 first sub to the house floor.

Uh, briefly. So, in working with Representative Thurston, he's the chair of the general government appropriations. I'm the vice chair. And, uh, I've seen the, the painstaking efforts that he has been doing to try to improve government efficiency and organization. And so this is, I I view this as one of the many efforts that he's been doing to try to clean up some of the things and make things, um, better structured and organized. And so I appreciate the good sponsor for running this bill and I think it's good policy.

Just I have the best advice chair of all the appropriations committees, so thank you. He's, he's great. Alright. The committee.

I can say having been on the cabinet twice, that this is a good move. It makes a lot of sense. And to your point, representative, it kinda, with all the directors, it's at many different levels.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. 3 84. I moved. I think I'm still stuck on the fact that Stoddard got a bill through my committee.

Any chance you would put this on a consent so I don't have to deal with it on the floor? I'd like to make a motion that we move with this on consent.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you Mr. Chair and members of the committee. It's good to be with you as always. Uh, this bill is, um, the Department of Government Operations Cleanup bill, if you will. There were just a few things that were, have been pending out there since the, uh, merger when they brought DTS Finance, DHRM, all of those sort of divisions or our departments are now divisions of Department of Government Operations, and there are some things related to that that needed to just be cleaned up in the last little bit. The other part of this is cleaning up the titles. I guess the governor wants to grant titles of Duke and Prince, but couldn't do that. So he is gonna grant titles of commissioner to his government, governor, editorial appointees, and I have Marvin Dodge here from DGO that can explain the technical nature of the DGO consolidation questions, if that's necessary.

Yes. So we currently have a mix of commissioners and executive directors. And so if you are the executive director of whatever, uh, you would now be called a commissioner. So Carlos would now be commissioner instead of Carlos.

Mar Yeah. Marvin Dodge, executive director. I guess I better push that. Marvin Dodge, executive Director of gov Ops. This, this is actually one of the governor's office added, so I haven't had that particular conversation, but it has come up once or twice that, that we have a bunch of commissions, uh, and several of the cabinet level folks are commissioner already. I I think that the intent is trying to get away from the banking philosophy where everybody's a vice president, that there are so many directors at different levels. It becomes confusing. So this really has been an effort to look at titles across the board and comparison with other states and cabinet members in other states. They landed on commissioner, I suspect Senator. There'll be additional conversation about commissions and, and how those folks are referred to.

Yeah. I think that's part, part two is now going back and looking at those other, those other commissioners, and really those are boards and probably shouldn't be called commissions. They should, they should be called boards and they should have board members and board chairs and appropriate titles. But this is step one of cleaning up at least the gubernatorial appointee so that they are all on par with each other.

They'll they'll be still directors, like, so the director of of parks will be director of Parks. And in fact, that's the problem. Right? 'cause you've got par, uh, state parks, you've got water resources, all these, all these guys are directors. And Joel Ferry is a director, and you get directors of directors. So at least at the top level, we know the cabinet members are all commissioners, and then underneath them, they'll retain their titles of director or whatever it is that they need to be retained as.

I think that concludes the presentation.

Thank Mr. Chair. I would make a motion. We favor, we recommend, uh, house Bill 3 84 for substitute.

to the sponsor. I'll waive

I'll waive. Okay.

I aye. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That is unanimous. Four zero.

You Mr. Speaker. This bill has two parts, both of which are relatively minor cleanups. The first part has to do with the Department of Government operations when we consolidated the Department of Government Operations, all those different components, D-T-S-D-H-R-M, et cetera, et cetera. There were some things that got left out and those are being cleaned up in the bill. And then the other part of this is that the governor has asked to be able to grant titles to all of his gubernatorial appointees. He would like to refer them to them as informally as commissioners. And that's what the bill does. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Thank you Mr. President Pro Tam. Let me find the notes. Um, whoops. This bill is a cleanup, I guess you can call it cleanup. Bottom, bottom line. Some modifications to Department, department of government operations. And it does a couple of things. One, we're adding the office of data privacy to the department of F gov ops. It updates, uh, the executive branch agency receiving payroll services through the new Vantage payroll system and, and provide to ex, it also provides for the depart department of government Ops as the host agency of the division of Finance to exercise oversight of the state's new comprehensive accounting human resource payroll system, which is the vantage system. It modifies an out outdated requirement that division of finance audit all claims against the state. And then in the substitute, uh, we're doing some title changing and you know, we've had a lot of directors and executive directors, those types of things. This one, the bill will now change those, a lot of those to commissioner trying to get on, on par with uh, what, what the status is there. Um, that is, like I say, a nomenclature change. That was something that, uh, the governor's office requested. And so that one, that change went into the first substitute that I'm open for questions. Thank you. Is there a discussion to this bill?

Thank you Mr. President ProAm. I will wait. Summation, move the first substitute hospital 3 84. Be read a third time. And the question is, shall first substitute house bill 3 84? Be read for third time. Roll call vote.

Senator Wilson. Table on third A motion. We table on third.

Senator Wilson. Motion to circle sponsors off the floor.

Wilson. Motion to circle sponsors off the floor.

Senator Fillmore, thank you. I'll make a motion to circle 'cause I think my votes might be off the floor.

Motion to circle sponsors on the diocese.

Senator Brammer. Thank you. So for the last, uh, for about a decade, we've had cities charging transportation utility fees. Uh, this has been based on a, on a Utah Supreme Court decision that, uh, has its own issues. However, this is the reality before us at this point.

Thank you. Uh, Mr. President. This is, uh, some cleanup language from the Department of Government Operations and the bill adds the Office of Data Privacy to the Department of Government Operations. It updates executive branch agencies receiving payroll services through the new Vantage system. Also, we're changing some nomenclature, uh, where everyone that we've had executive director and directors and some comm commissioners, they're changing that. Moving to commissioner as the former position. Former title of the position of executive director on most cases. And with that, I'm open for any questions.

Thank you, Mr. President. I would wave summation, move the first substitute house bill 3 84 pass. Thank You. And the question is, shall

first substitute House Bill three eighty four Pass. Roll call Vote. Senator Spery Lein Brammer Bus Cullimore Escamia Aye. Cullimore Fillmore Grover Harper Kins Ipson Johnson k Juab McKay Mikel Milner Musselman Owens Pitcher Thumb Rebi Sandal Stevenson Stratton Bickers Aye. Weiler Wilson Winterton. President Adams Aye.