The Michigan House of Representatives created a robust Oversight Committee last year, with various subcommittees focused on specific public policy areas. It’s been a long time since there was this kind of dedication to reviewing state government operations.
Oversight is important because an elected official’s job is not simply to pass new laws, but to review those already on the books. Did a law achieve what it was designed to accomplish? Did the cost of implementing it exceed estimates? What unintended consequences, if any, resulted from the law?
Elected leaders, like most of us, are prone to look only at immediate, pressing issues. Too often the tendency is to react quickly to the problem of the moment, without proper reflection.
Most public policy problems are not new. It would be prudent to spend some time and energy to review what our predecessors did when they faced similar challenges. What did they decide, and did their choices make things better?
Oversight is not an issue only for state lawmakers. Local government officials can and should conduct oversight. There are different ways they can do this. For example, a county board of commissioners could periodically set aside time during committee meetings to review some aspect of county government services. Or a township board could take one meeting each year to review past policy decisions — especially before starting to negotiate the next budget. Or a city council could designate a staff member to research a pressing topic and moderate a discussion at the next meeting.
Elected officials could investigate many aspects of local government. A new or altered policy moves from debates to creating a path forward to enacting a new policy, and a lot can change over that time. What elected leaders may have envisioned as a workable solution can be distorted over time by the vagaries of implementing that policy or the changing technological and social environment.
Officials can avoid some of the pitfalls of a new policy if they draw on the hard data government agencies already collect. It can be overwhelming to sift through the amount of reports elected officials face each month. But this goldmine of data can sometimes reveal a problem that can be resolved or avoided before it becomes a crisis.
It’s important to review budgets to see if the relevant government office has the resources it needs for a public policy goal. But local leaders shouldn’t miss out on the untapped potential of human memory and experience in their own governmental buildings and community.
The overwhelming majority of local elected officials serve on a part-time basis. They attend a few board meetings a month along with a handful of committee meetings. They read dozens of pages of material to prepare, often trying to hold down a 9-to-5 job and raising a family at the same time. There is no need for them to stretch themselves even thinner.
Spending some of their time on oversight could give them insight into how previous boards debated an issue and if their solutions made a difference. The work of oversight could create some good habits of asking the right questions, leading to better choices and outcomes.
