DNR Split Added Bureaucracy, Cut Programs
DNR split added bureaucracy, cut programs
A rather mundane yet illuminating document crossed my desk recently.
“The 1995 Split of the Department of Natural Resources; Analysis of Cost Changes,” by the Senate Fiscal Agency is everything you’d imagine it to be: a non-sexy chronicle of what has happened fiscally since the old DNR became two agencies.
A Tom Clancy book it ain’t. Fact is, it’s so dry it took me two Diet Cokes and a jug of Gatorade just to get through it. And it’s less than four pages.
I never bought all that malarkey about two agencies operating more efficiently than one when the Department of Environmental Quality was created. It’s nice to see that a nonpartisan state government agency documented it.
And it did. In spades.
The conclusion: The cost of administration has increased 15 percent, the cost of executive division programs has skyrocketed 66 percent and environmental program funding has decreased 4 percent since the split.
“It clearly shows a shift away from programs,” said Lana Pollack, former state senator from Ann Arbor and president of the Michigan Environmental Council. “And it shows the cost of the split came with higher administrative overhead.”
Like, duh. My kid could have told you that.
But that was not what was promised when Gov. John Engler created DEQ by proclamation August 1,1995. We were told the DNR was bloated and unwieldy and that the two departments would accomplish the mission more efficiently.
Now we know that’s not so.
Although the actual costs are not staggering - administration cost a little over $4.2 million more in 1996-97 than in 1994-95, not much in a total budget of $629 million - Pollack sees trouble looming.
“A million here and a million there runs into real dollars at a time when there is an obvious need to put more people in the field to do the work that is required for real stewardship,” Pollack said. “As my dad used to tell me, ‘If you own a piece of property, you have to take care of it.’ I don’t think we are."
Pollack’s interpretation of the report is echoed by other conservation leaders.
“It obviously showed that streamlining is not the purpose of the split,” said Rick Jameson, Executive Director of Michigan United Conservation Clubs. “You can’t run two agencies for the price of one.
“Millions of dollars of additional costs were funded from programs. Fish, wildlife, environmental clean-ups, parks - you name it - paid for more deputy directors.”
Although the Senate Fiscal Agency provided a no-nonsense, financial summaiy of the cost of doing the state’s natural resources business under two agencies, it made no determination of what our money is buying us. There are those who believe we are getting considerably less.
Take, for instance, the DEQ’s decision that it would not consider the effects that hydroelectric facilities have on fish populations when certifying dams for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission re-licensing. That’s akin to saying fish are not an environmental concern.
“There isn’t cooperation or coordination in areas where (the agencies) have obvious overlap,” Jameson said. “Fish and wildlife takes a back seat on environmental decisions now. They used to be players. Now they’re not even at the table."
Worse yet, at least the Department of Natural Resources, which is run by the Natural Resources Commission, has some oversight and exposure to public scrutiny. DEQ has none - it operates in a vacuum, setting policy often before the public even understands the issue.
“You find out later that they’ve done it,” Jameson said. “That's one of the fundamental problems with the current setup -there’s no forum for citizen input or information.”
Although several attempts to pass legislation creating a DEQ oversight commission have stalled, environmentalists continue to push for it. The Senate Fiscal Agency’s study provides at least this much ammo: The basic logic for creating a separate DEQ - that it could do the job better and more efficiently than the old DNR - is blatantly untrue.
Whether that will spark action from the Legislature creating some sort of DEQ commission remains to be seen. But Pollack, Jameson and others who are paying attention to natural resources policy want everyone to know that we are paying more for administration and getting less for it.
“People need to know the split took money directly out of programs to pay for more bureaucracy,” Jameson concluded. “People need to know.”
Ann Arbor News bureau
SATURDAY, AUG. 9,1997