SB 62, introduced by Senator Miller, removes the expiration dates for the office of the secretary of family and social services, the office of Medicaid policy and planning, the statutes concerning directors of divisions within family and social services (FSSA), and certain advisory committees under the FSSA statutes.
I’m working from a vague memory here, so don’t rely too heavily on it, but my recollection is that the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) was created to rationalize the operations of some independent social service agencies dealing with aging, Medicaid, family services, and the like. Legislators wary of the expansion of government voted for it, or maybe even responding to lobbying from the independent agencies, were persuaded to vote for the creation of FSSA only with the inclusion of sunset dates. Those dates have been extended from time to time – since at least 1992, judging from the history of the statutes being repealed (but possibly longer if Title 12 has been recodified). Pretending FSSA is just a temporary creation is kind of silly at this point, so the legislature might as well get rid of those sunset dates. In the future, if they want to get rid of the administration, they should probably just do it directly.
Is this an attempt to give ‘tenure’ to certain administrators?
I can see removing the expirations (sunsets) on the actual organization, but I am not so certain administrators themselves should not always be subject to a review process, which would occur as their expiration dates approached. If their review is not good, just let their term as an administrator expire.
I guess the flipside is that with expiriations of terms of office in place, an administrator is at the mercy of a majority vote in the legislature? That could be ugly in its’ own way.