Strengthen the Intergovernmental Partnership Background To develop a seamless and high quality system of public services for the 21st century, the federal, state, and local governments must work together in fundamentally more effective ways than has historically been the case. Even though the institutional support historically provided at the federal level for intergovernmental collaboration has been less than perfect, it has been even further eroded during the past decade. Intergovernmental offices in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Accounting Office (GAO) were cut significantly. Funding and political support for the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations has been radically reduced, and its credibility and quality of objective analysis undermined. Congressional governmental operations committees have moved their focus away from complicated and often contentious intergovernmental issues, while the Executive Office of the President and departmental intergovernmental relations staff have, in recent years, increasingly turned their attention to constituent service issues, rather than substantive intergovernmental policy--let alone service delivery or problem-solving concerns.[Endnote 1] Need for Change The decline of intergovernmental institutional support systems has resulted in a sense among state and local officials that the federal government is unconcerned about the intergovernmental effects of its decisions. This is reflected in the decreased communication and lack of effective input into federal decisionmaking in both the executive and legislative branches. Twenty years ago, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) was a prestigious and heavily used advisory institution, producing numerous analytical reports on the intergovernmental impact of federal policy. The intergovernmental forum that ACIR initiated was eventually strengthened with the establishment of intergovernmental offices in OMB and GAO. In recent years, ACIR has lost stature, influence, and resources. For example, in 1986, the House Appropriations Committee reduced ACIR's budget by 53 percent. And, in the past five years, ACIR has not had a quorum at more than one quarter of its meetings. Some have argued that ACIR should be allowed to die a peaceful death. Yet, when you examine the law originally creating ACIR, its mission and purpose seem directly relevant to today's critical issues of intergovernmental service delivery, problem solving, and effective performance. The original charter sought to: --bring together representatives of the federal, state, and local governments for consideration of common problems; --provide a forum for discussing the administration and coordination of federal grant and other programs requiring intergovernmental cooperation; --give critical attention to the conditions and controls in the administration of federal grant programs; --make available technical assistance to the executive and legislative branches of the federal government in the review of legislation to determine its overall impact on the federal system; --encourage discussion and study at an early stage of emerging public problems that are likely to require intergovernmental cooperation; --recommend the most desirable allocation of governmental functions, responsibilities, and revenues among the several levels; and --recommend methods of coordinating and simplifying tax laws and administrative practices to achieve a more orderly and less competitive fiscal relationship between the levels of government and to reduce the burden of compliance on taxpayers. Under the charter, ACIR's membership is bi-partisan, with elected and appointed officials from the federal, state, and local levels, as well as citizen members. The members are appointed by the President, Speaker of the House, or President of the Senate. While all of the vacancies for the current two-year membership have been nominated or filled, they have not been selected in a coordinated or focused process. Endnotes 1. Stever, James A., "The Growth and Decline of Executive-Centered Intergovernmental Management," Publius, Vol. 23 (Winter 1993), pp. 71_84.
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