Article One, Section 35, of the North Carolina constitution states, “A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty.”  That is precisely what the House Oversight Committee aims to do by asking the fundamental purpose of each state agency and how it fulfills that purpose.

How can the General Assembly, as the board of directors for each state agency, set a direction for the agency and measure the agency’s performance?

The simple answer is “oversight.” The House Oversight Committee will seek more specific answers in these hearings.

The committee exists to ensure agencies are doing the right things the right way; that they are being effective and efficient. This is a nearly impossible task for government. State agencies do not have profits and losses to help guide their decisions. By law, they are mandated to supply their services, and, in some cases, the citizen is mandated to use their services, often without an alternative. While the price an agency pays for a good or service may be set in a more-or-less competitive process, the price it charges to users of its service is set by the legislature.

With prices, profits, and losses, agencies would know whether people liked the services and goods available and if the processes to provide those services and goods were efficient enough to continue as a concern in the future. Lost customers, departing workers, or lower profits would likely prompt a re-evaluation of government’s efforts. Without those, the legislature and state agencies need to specify the societal goal desired, then decide what tasks government can and ought to undertake to achieve that goal, how to go about those tasks, and measure whether those tasks really are contributing to the goal as expected. If the goal is not being achieved, the agency and legislature need to evaluate whether the problem was a poorly defined goal, choosing the wrong task to achieve the goal, or doing the task the wrong way.

The committee intends to call each agency secretary and director and ask them three questions:

• What is better about North Carolina if the agency does its job well?
• What measure does the agency use to know if it is successful?
• What programs and activities help the agency achieve its core outcome?