Successful change takes thought, listening

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. named most of his Cabinet this week.

And while there are seven new faces, Huntsman also kept 10 current department/commission heads.

Huntsman was pretty mild on former Govs. Olene Walker and Mike Leavitt during his campaign. While saying there was need for change and innovation in state government, he didn't slap his GOP colleagues around for the way they've run Utah the past 12 years.

Besides his desire not to bad-mouth his GOP predecessors, Huntsman also has to get along with Republican legislative leaders — most of whom have been in office for more than a decade and so are responsible for how the state has been run during the 1990s and 2000s.

Still, Huntsman's campaign did leave the impression that there would be big changes in a Huntsman administration. Certainly the new faces announced Wednesday can make some of those changes. And as Huntsman noted in his announcement press conference, if the current department heads won't catch Huntsman's "agent of change" philosophy, well, they won't be department heads long.

But even with all the talk, you are not seeing the wholesale changes of, say, 1985. Democratic Govs. Cal Rampton and Scott M. Matheson had, together, been in office for 20 years when Republican Gov. Norm Bangerter took over in 1985. And a definite feel of change came over state government.

Every new administration brings in new people. But some good public servants are leaving state government, as Huntsman didn't ask them to stay on. Among them are former Human Services executive director Robin Arnold-Williams, former Agriculture Commissioner Cary Peterson and former Community and Economic Development executive director Dave Harmer.

Huntsman will ask the 2005 Legislature, which convenes in a little over a week, to reorganize the Department of Community and Economic Development. He wants to bring into the governor's office itself all economic development and tourism activities. The old DCED will then be a community and arts development department, significantly reduced in manpower and responsibility.

Huntsman is also considering combining the state's Human Services and Health departments, structuring those areas along the lines of the federal Health and Human Services Department, which, ironically, will soon be run by Leavitt for the Bush administration.

It's healthy to look at government's structure every now and then. But as House Speaker Greg Curtis points out, Utah was listed as one of the best-managed states by various groups over the past 10 years. And while Utah government had some tough times in the early 2000s financially, it didn't face the huge budget deficits of California and other states.