There's an old saying that you don't want to see how sausage and laws are made; both processes may make you sick.
We have a fairly good idea how most laws are made — in the Utah Legislature, bills are drafted, introduced, heard in committees, debated, amended and voted on in the House and Senate. By and large it is an open, if sometimes messy, process.
This week we got a glimpse of how some executive decisions are made behind the scenes when freshman Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., released to the media his so-called "transition book."
The two-inch-thick ring binder is crammed with assessments, suggestions, "hey-this-is-a-good-idea" memos from the half-dozen or so volunteer transition teams Huntsman put together after he won the November 2004 election. The teams reported back to him before he took office the first of this year.
Some of the transition teams really did a lot of work, as reflected in their thorough, written analyses.
The records of other teams are more sketchy, perhaps because they were looking at state departments that were, by and large, settled — Huntsman was going to keep that management team intact — or because the team leaders reported most of their findings and recommendations to Huntsman verbally, skipping the work of writing them up.
The Corrections Department team really went to town. Headed by longtime state government insider John T. Nielsen, a former public safety commissioner, and the Rev. France Davis, who has watched state corrections for years, the team interviewed dozens of people, including two former prison inmates, and wrote a lengthy report.
That team, as did others, had a number of ideas on how to make state government work better.
As I read over the team reports, I got the general impression that a number of state employees are not happy campers. There was much dissatisfaction.
That's understandable on several fronts.
First, any time you have a long period of one administration, naturally stale bureaucracies can become even more stale, harder to move.
And that can lead to a "this-is-how-we-do-this, sit-down-and-shut-up" attitude toward the rank-and-file.
Former Gov. Mike Leavitt was in his 11th year when he resigned in the late fall of 2003 to become administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. His lieutenant governor, Olene Walker, became governor and served out the 14 months of their third four-year term.
Walker brought energy to her office. And her far-reaching tax reform report is the basis for an ongoing tax study that could lead to significant changes in how Utahns and visitors pay taxes here.
But Walker, understandably, kept most of the department and agency bosses of the Leavitt/Walker administration.
So when Huntsman came in, there was a management layer that, in some cases, had been here for years.
Second, because of a downturn in the Utah economy and an accompanying drop in tax revenues, state workers didn't get pay raises for several years in the early 2000s.
While, through prudent management, Leavitt and lawmakers avoided across-the-board employee layoffs — seen in many other states — you can't expect workers to be really happy with their jobs when they are working harder and not getting paid more.
Still, the transition book reflects some pretty unhappy state workers out there, workers dealing with greater work loads, fewer resources.
Since Huntsman's transition reports came in, the 2005 Legislature changed the way unused sick leave is converted into health-care insurance payments upon retirement.
HB213, while of little note to non-state government workers, is having a real impact on state employees. They are even unhappier than they were before.
Hundreds could be taking early retirement this coming fall and winter, gone by Jan. 1, 2006, so they can keep the old, much more generous, sick-leave conversion benefits. In some cases, longtime state veterans could get eight years or more in state-funded health insurance if they retire early.
Huntsman has picked a few areas where he's pushing changes.
He fired 33 economic development and tourism staffers and got the Legislature to agree to let him move economic development into the governor's office. He'll outsource a big part of economic development as soon as attorneys can work out a contract with his selected consultant.
He's reorganizing the state's 1,000 information technology employees.
He's working on an achievement-measurement system in other departments.
But he's dumped earlier ideas of combining the departments of Human Services and Health and the departments of Public Safety and Corrections. (Both of his transition teams in those areas said the departments should remain separate.)
Huntsman, while a smart guy, was basically a neophyte to state government and its politics when he started his gubernatorial campaign.
That's not unusual. I remember seeing Leavitt up at a legislative interim day a year before his 1992 race, holding a list of lawmakers in his hand, looking at pictures of GOP House members as he tried to introduce himself to them as they came out of their noon caucus meeting.
In any case, coming into such a broad-scope office as governor, it's wise to set up transition teams, not only to help you decide if you keep this or that department head, but also to outline critical concerns in important agencies and gather some informed suggestions for solutions.
Deseret Morning News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com