Strengthen The Intergovernmental Partnership

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.