Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee
Keypoints
SUNSET REVIEW PROCESS
Sunset is a mechanism under which predetermined entities and programs are periodically reviewed and terminated unless continued by a legislative act.
Sunset laws were adopted in 36 states between 1976 and 1981.
Since 1981, sunset laws have been repealed in eight of 36 states with such statutes and suspended in four others. Among the reasons frequently cited for these actions:
- the process places excessive time demands on legislators and legislative staff;
- the process often requires legislators to choose between proposals that are modestly beneficial to all citizens but devastatingly negative to specific interest groups; and
- other forms of oversight have become more popular.
State sunset laws vary in terms of: entities and programs covered; source of staff to conduct reviews; responsibility for overseeing the conduct of reviews; and responsibility for managing sunset bills in the legislature.
In Connecticut sunset reviews are conducted by the program review committee and its staff. The committee reports its findings and recommendations to the Government Administration and Elections Committee, which is charged with holding hearings and reporting all sunset bills to the full General Assembly.
Between 1979 and 1983, the program review committee examined 94 entities. It made slightly more than 350 recommendations, of which approximately 270 were adopted. Key results of the sunset process were:
- development of a model act standardizing the organization and operation of boards and commissions in terms of meetings, appointments, attendance, and quorums, etc.;
- elimination of restrictions on the business practices of health professionals;
- elimination of 17 boards and commissions; and
numerous entity or program specific instances of increases in efficiency and accountability, such as entity consolidations, clarification of authority and responsibility, and requiring information be more accessible to the public.
Fifty-two percent of the 83 entities and programs currently covered by the state's law involve the regulation of individual practitioners or the enforcement of state standards. Advisory bodies and service agencies comprise 48 percent.
Continuing sunset as currently specified in statute would affect the annual activities of the program review committee by:
- consuming 20 to 60 percent of the committee's existing staff resources;
- increasing the number of committee meetings by 30 to 60 percent; and
- reducing the number of non-sunset studies from six to eight per year to two to four.