You think you've got junk mail. Try 141 long, mostly boring reports stuffed into your mailbox each year.
You don't read them. And they're costing you and state taxpayers $91,750 just to print. (That doesn't include untold dollars in employee time in preparation, research and writing.)Some Utah lawmakers want to cut back on the reports that, by law, must be compiled by state agencies and sent to legislators and the governor each year. "We don't read most of them, it's a waste," says Rep. Byron Harward, R-Provo, co-chairman of the Legislative Process Committee, which is studying which reports to keep, which to do away with.
Harward, a private publisher of Utah law books, has a post office box to which all his legislative mail is sent. He has to empty it every day or it fills up. "Many days there's so much stuff I have a pink slip in the box telling me I have to pick up mail (from behind the counter) that wouldn't fit in the box," he says.
A search of the Utah code shows that by law 141 reports must be compiled each year and sent to Utah's 104 part-time legislators and the governor, said Pete Groesbeck, a researcher with the Office of Planning and Budget, which searched the code for Harward's committee.
In his study Groesbeck asked state agencies what they themselves thought of the reports they were producing. Officials identified 53 reports that they - the very people who write them - don't believe are worthwhile. "So if they say themselves the reports aren't needed, why are we writing them?" asks Harward.
In previous discussions about unneeded reports, Senate Majority Whip Leonard Blackham, R-Nephi, co-chairman on Harward's committee, somewhat sheepishly admitted that he throws away most of the reports he's mailed. Some he stuffs in files at his home office, but he rarely reads them.
Charlie Johnson, Gov. Mike Leavitt's chief of staff, says some of the reports are valuable. They're read and studied by members of Leavitt's Office of Planning and Budget and used in budget preparation, says Johnson.
"The first question we should ask is if the reports are useful and are they read. The second question is how best to deliver the information," says Johnson.
Among other suggestions, Harward wants all the reports put on the Internet. "That way we're not wasting paper printing them and they are accessible to a lot more people - all the citizens who get on the Internet," says Harward. If a lawmaker or resident wants a printed copy of the report, he can download it and print it himself, says Harward.
Groesbeck found that of 141 reports only 13 are on the Internet. And of those, seven are reports required of the state's Information Technology Office.
Oddly enough, 17 of the 141 reports are written by the governor's office itself or the office's several branches. Lt. Gov. Olene Walker's office, staffed by fewer than two dozen people, must, by law, write a report titled "Operations and Activities of Lt. Governor."
Harward and Blackham's committee by itself can do nothing. But it is suggesting to legislative leaders several steps be taken. First, lawmakers should only be notified that reports are available, they shouldn't automatically be sent copies. "That way," says Harward, "if an individual legislator has an interest in the report, they can ask for one." (Not all legislators are usually sent copies of all reports, although leaders get many or most of them. But historically all members of certain committees are sent reports on subjects the committee oversees, whether the legislators want them or not.)
Secondly, the 53 reports that agencies say are worthless should immediately be reviewed by the appropriate legislative interim committee and stopped if the committee doesn't want them printed.
Harward also said his committee will be asking some agencies why their reports seem to cost so much per printed copy. Some reports have a small per-copy cost, while others cost between $11 and $15 per copy to print, he said.
Harward expects a bill to be prepared for the 1997 Legislature that would eliminate the need to write dozens of unwanted, unread reports.
"We have to change the law to kill a report, for the reports are required by law," says Harward. As of now, 54,372 copies of 141 reports are being printed.
Here are just a few examples of the reports that must be written each year and their printing costs:
- 25,000 copies of the annual report by the Workers Comprehensive Fund of Utah, cost: $20,000.
- 18 copies of the Deer/Elk Plans Annual Progress Report, cost: $200.
- 235 copies of the Board of Regents "Activities of the Board (data book)," cost $2,700.
- 650 copies of the Utah Dairy Commission's annual report, cost $3,000.
- 3,000 copies of the Division of Family Services' Legislative Oversight Panel Report, cost $1,000.
- 50 copies of the Tax Commission's Utah Low-income Housing Tax Credit report, cost $5.