Key legislators indicate the proposed merger of three state agencies may start soon, although the savings from the government streamlining won’t come as quickly. Senator Mary Lundby, a republican from Marion who’s chair of the Senate’s new Oversight Committee, has been reviewing the idea for months. Lundby says there’s a lot of potential for long-term savings with the merger of the Departments of Personnel, Information Technology and General Services. The plan would fold parts of the Department of Revenue and the Iowa Communications Network into the new agency. It’d be called the Department of Administrative Services, and some employees would be laid off but no one’s yet saying how many. Governor Vilsack advanced the idea last spring, but lawmakers said they didn’t have enough time to review the proposal and weren’t sure it’d save money. Lundby says the major concerns have been erased, and it’s full steam ahead.Lundby says it’ll take a year and a half to complete the merger. She says there are printing practices and accounting practices that have to be taken into account.Governor Vilsack says he’ll appoint Mollie Anderson, the current director of the Department of Personnel, as the leader of the new agency.
