Richard Moore

One of the things that has most perplexed me over the past decade is why no governor wants to undertake a fundamental reform of the state Department of Natural Resources.

And make no mistake about it, no governor does.

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson actually helped to make it the agency the beast it is. What’s more, he not only loaded it with radical aestheticists whose very intent was to destroy private property rights in northern Wisconsin but gave them the tools with which to accomplish their radical goals, including the launch of a rewrite of the state’s unincorporated shoreland rules and comprehensive planning statutes, also known as Smart Growth.

By the time Thompson got done, private property owners were howling, and a Republican Legislature was listening. In 2001, as Thompson was leaving for Washington and Republican Scott McCallum replaced him, lawmakers did the right thing and voted to split the giant bureaucracy into separate agencies, as other states have successfully done, including Michigan and Minnesota.

Unfortunately for everybody, McCallum wasn’t listening to the people. He was listening to special interests – environmentalists and then Democratic majority leader Chuck Chvala – and vetoed the legislation. A historic opportunity to curb unbridled anti-property rights power was lost.

Of course, there’s no need to mention what happened when Gov. Jim Doyle came along. He piled it on even more, and the agency reached the peak of its unpopularity, arrogance and downright contempt for average property owners and citizens around the state.

Now along comes Gov. Scott Walker and, once again, we are left to wonder: Where’s the beef? So far, there ain’t any, and property rights advocates should not take the crumbs tossed their way so far as a full meal. It’s not going to fill you up.

None of which is to say property rights aren’t safer, or property owners more protected, under the Walker administration. They are. The agency has delayed implementation of NR115 (shoreland zoning) to review its more onerous provisions, and the governor has tightened the criteria for willy-nilly rulewriting adventures the agency was famous for. DNR secretary Cathy Stepp is a smart and property-rights friendly manager who is intent on reaching out to the alienated public and on taming the worst of abusive staff tendencies.

And then there is the mini-reorganization announced last week. It’s loaded with good initiatives and good targets. It will increase over-the-counter customer service, which the DNR had curbed under Mr. Doyle. That’s a great step in restoring public confidence.

The DNR will also strive to reduce permitting times and open an office to serve as a contact point between regulators and businesses seeking to do business in the state. That’s good, too, as a way to start cutting burdensome regulations that often kill job-creating projects.

In addition, the department will be able to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies by managing its own fleet and facilities’ operations. Cost savings goals have been etched into the agency’s memorandum of understanding with the Department of Administration to make sure these goals are accomplished, and, if they aren’t, the DOA can rein the agency in.

Sounds really good. So what’s the problem?

The problem is, none of this represents fundamental reform. None of this puts in place statutory mechanisms to make sure the “good DNR” lasts well into the future. As long as Mr. Walker is governor, everything will likely be hunky-dory. But what will happen if he’s not?

All of us should remember a bit of history. Way back in the early 2000s, The Lakeland Times uncovered the DNR’s massive mismanagement of its fleet. Technically, they weren’t managing their fleet independently of the DOA, but the DOA was approving just about every request sent its way.

In other words, the DOA and the DNR had their own unofficial memorandum of understanding, Democratic and big-government Republican style – the DOA approved virtually every excess the DNR desired.

And excess it was. The agency spent more than $18 million purchasing vehicles statewide in the four-year period between 1999 and 2002, our investigation revealed. In 2002, the department spent an average of $16,753 a day buying vehicles.

And that was under Republicans!

The same goes for managing their properties. The pages of The Times have been loaded for a decade with examples of the DNR trashing its lands.

Fundamental reform is needed to prevent all this from happening again. That means fundamental reform of the administrative rule process to give the Legislature an active rather than passive role in rule review, meaning elected officials must sign off before anything that has the force and effect of law is enacted.

The state, too, needs to follow in the footsteps of others and split the bureaucracy into separate agencies for environmental protection and for conservation, and perhaps for forestry as well.

In most cases, government becomes more efficient and accountable when it consolidates, but that is not always the case. Sometimes, resources can be more efficiently managed in smaller, more focused units, and without spending more money, even though a new agency administration is developed.

Such agencies can be more accountable because the money is easily trackable, and segregated funds can’t be lost, or shifted to another agency, as they can be shifted to other internal departments in large bureaucracies. The larger the agency, the more room for bureaucratic mischief, when run by those aligned with bureaucratic new bosses.

That’s exactly where the DNR is. Cathy Stepp and company might manage it for the benefit of taxpayers, but it is too large to be held accountable and to have practical oversight when run by the new bosses – the very same argument candidate Walker made about Milwaukee Public School system.

It’s also why Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder resplit the DNR there earlier this year after Democrats had recombined it a year earlier. Overall, the spending for the two agencies for 2012 will rise by just 2.3 percent over the combined agencies last year, while general tax funding will decrease by about 15 percent for each agency.

In Wisconsin, general tax funding for the DNR held steady. The 2011 budget does shrink by $43 million, or 4.7 percent over last year, but that’s due to a one-time debt service. It bounds back to within 1.4 percent of 2010 funding in 2012. In other words, there’s not much fiscal impact by splitting the agencies, and it looks like it might be a boon to taxpayers.

But there’s a colossal impact over the DNR’s long-term ability to attack private property rights and elude accountability. There might be a better way to fundamentally reform the agency in the long run, but I haven’t heard it. In the meantime, business and property owners should enjoy their breather from burdensome regulation.

Just don’t be surprised if it doesn’t last too long.