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TALES...LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP - Page 14

© Coy Holley

As chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, Wolens made good on his warning Friday by rewriting a Senate bill meant to continue the agency. The new version would strip the agency of most of its responsibilities and reorganize what is left under a new board.

A.E. "Gene" Shull of Tyler, a contractor and chairman of the General Services Commission, said Friday that he had not spoken with Wolens in at least a month and was unaware of the proposed changes. Shull said while the commission has made progress in resolving weaknesses, part of the problem is legislative limits on how much it can pay top-notch executives. Though obscure, the General Services Commission is a big spender on behalf of state government. It has about 850 employees and an annual budget of $65 million to oversee the purchase of more than $1 billion a year in supplies and services for state agencies.

The commission also manages the construction, leasing and maintenance of many state buildings. In the 2000 fiscal year, it oversaw 68 construction projects worth a total of $243 million. The commission's third major responsibility is overseeing TEX-AN 2000, the state's telecommunications system and the source of another headache. In August 1999, it signed a contract in which AT&T was to take over the state's telecommunications system. It would cost the state about $250 million over the next five years, though it was supposed to save the state money compared with its old system.

But a Sunset Advisory Commission report last fall said AT&T immediately began missing deadlines for key services, forcing the General Services Commission to turn to other providers or provide the services itself. The state didn't pay for services it didn't get, the report said, but failed to realize an estimated $6 million in projected savings. AT&T acknowledges some problems but says not all are its fault or as bad as the sunset commission has said.

A bill already passed by the Senate includes a sunset commission suggestion to reassign General Services' telecommunications responsibilities to the Texas Department of Information Resources, which oversees state computer systems. That bill is now before Wolens' committee. Wolens' substitute legislation would go farther, reassigning General Services' construction and maintenance work to the State Preservation Board, whose executive director, Rick Crawford, has been praised for the new Bob Bullock State History Museum. What's left of the commission would become the State Procurement Commission, with a new board appointed by the governor. "There's significant unhappiness with that agency," said state Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, the House sponsor of the Senate bill. If a sunset bill doesn't pass, the state agency dies...

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