BILL REQ. #:  H-0671.1 

Read first time 01/17/2003.   Referred to Committee on State Government.

     AN ACT Relating to reducing the number of employees in the Washington management service; adding new sections to chapter 41.06 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   The legislature finds that excessive growth in state spending and ongoing expenditure obligations have created a budget crisis of critical proportions which requires immediate and demanding fiscal discipline. Serious and comprehensive measures must be taken to reduce the costs of government as quickly as possible and to ensure that citizens are not burdened with even higher taxes. Reassessing the function and control of the Washington management service is an essential part of resolving this budget crisis.
     The legislature further finds that organizations with larger staff per manager ratios are more efficient, and that state government can become more effective and less costly by reducing the layers of management, enlarging each manager's span of control, focusing decision-making authority, and moving decision-making authority down into units which provide services directly to the citizens. This will allow faster, more people-oriented decision making, lower management costs, improve employee satisfaction and motivation, create more opportunities for development of employee skills, put greater management focus on planning and goals, reduce duplication of tasks, roles, and responsibilities, ensure less micromanagement, speed decision making, provide clearer communication between bottom and top layers, make for less paperwork due to fewer reporting requirements, decrease the need for management-support staff, and result in fewer planning and coordination meetings.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2   A new section is added to chapter 41.06 RCW to read as follows:
     No agency may employ personnel who are classified as managers with supervisory job titles but who have no direct subordinates.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 3   A new section is added to chapter 41.06 RCW to read as follows:
     Unless prohibited by federal law, each agency shall have no more than one manager with a supervisory job title for each twenty-five nonmanagement employees within the agency.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 4   A new section is added to chapter 41.06 RCW to read as follows:
     Each agency must reduce the number of employees in the Washington management service by twenty-five percent no later than December 31, 2003.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 5   A new section is added to chapter 41.06 RCW to read as follows:
     Any reductions in the number of Washington management service employees within an agency shall not result in an increase of classified employees within the agency. Any reductions in the number of Washington management service employees within the state shall not result in an increase of classified employees within the state.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 6   A new section is added to chapter 41.06 RCW to read as follows:
     Section 2, 3, or 4 of this act shall not apply if the governor certifies to the legislature that substantive and compelling reasons exist that an agency should be exempt from complying with the provisions of this act. The governor shall submit findings and conclusions to support the certification based on empirical facts that show by clear and convincing evidence that the public will be harmed if the agency were to comply with the provisions of this act.