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Overview

The Government Operations Agency (CalGovOps) oversees departments that handle procurement, information technology and human resources including: the new Department of Human Resources, the Department of General Services and the Franchise Tax Board. It also supervises the activities of the state’s two giant pension funds, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS).

History:

The Government Operations Agency debuted July 1, 2013, as part of Governor Jerry Brown’s broad reorganization of state government’s executive branch. The Legislature approved the agency’s creation in June 2012 after a review by the independent Little Hoover Commission. The new agency combines departments and other entities from the State and Consumer Services Agency with the new Department of Human Resources and the formerly independent Department of Technology (formerly the California Technology Agency).

What it Does:

The Government Operations Agency oversees the activities of nine major departments and other entities having to do with information technology, human resources and procurement. The entities are:

California Public Employees’ Retirement System
CalPERS provides retirement and health benefits to 1.6 million members: about 1.1 million active and inactive public employees and more than half a million retirees and beneficiaries. CalPERS is the nation’s largest pension fund, with assets of $219.4 billion as of September 2011.

Department of General Services
The Department of General Services (DGS) is the state’s business manager, providing services to other state agencies that include real estate management; approval of designs for state buildings including local schools; procurement of labor and services, equipment and other items; printing services; and maintenance of state-owned vehicles. The diversified department manages tens of millions of square feet of office and warehouse space; buys and sells real estate; oversees 50,000 vehicles in the state’s fleet; runs the second-largest government printing plant in the U.S.; and buys $300 million in natural gas each year and $3 billion worth of insurance.

Department of Human Resources

CalHR consolidates functions of the Department of Personnel Administration with certain programs of the State Personnel Board and became part of the newly-created Government Operations Agency in July 2013. The department manages the state’s personnel functions and represents the governor as the “employer” in state employer-employee relations.

Department of Technology

The California Department of Technology, formerly known as the California Technology Agency, is responsible for the approval and oversight of all state information technology projects. Its 1,200 employees oversee information technology projects and public safety emergency communication systems, as well as establish and enforce statewide information technology policies, standards and strategic plans.

Franchise Tax Board
The Franchise Tax Board collects more than $50 billion in personal and corporate taxes, supplying about 60% of the General Fund.

The board also runs the Homeowner and Renter Assistance (HRA) program and other non-tax programs and delinquent debt collection functions, including child support and delinquent vehicle registration.

To help residents file taxes online, find information on new tax laws, determine the status of their return and figure out how to pay taxes, the board provides a taxpayer site.

Office of Administrative Law

The Office of Administrative Law (OAL) reviews all new regulations produced by California’s sprawling 200-plus state agencies in the executive branch of government. It checks them for clarity and legality, and eventually oversees their publication. But most importantly it makes sure the agencies follow the state’s Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which created the office.

State Personnel Board
The State Personnel Board is charged with adopting civil service rules and regulations, including setting up job classifications, reviewing cases of employee discipline and providing goal setting, training, bilingual, quality assurance and other services.

State Teachers’ Retirement System
The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the largest teachers’ retirement fund in the country, provides retirement-related benefits and services to teachers in public schools from kindergarten through community college. The system had 856,360 members and beneficiaries and $155.5 billion in assets as of June 2011.

Victims Compensation and Government Claims Board
The board reimburses eligible crime victims for certain expenses incurred as the result of a crime and processes all civil claims for money or damages filed against state agencies under the California Tort Claims Act.

Where Does the Money Go

The state budgeted $980.1 million from its General Fund for the Government Operations Agency in 2013-14. More than 75% of that was for the Franchise Tax Board.

2013-14 Budget (Ebudget)

Controversies:

Debate:

Suggested Reforms:

Former Directors:

Government Operations Agency

Batjer, Marybel

Secretary

Governor Jerry Brown’s new secretary of the Government Operations Agency has a long history of government service, but Marybel Batjer’s most recent job was in the private sector as vice president of public policy and corporate social responsibility at Caesars Entertainment Corporation.

Raised in Carson City, Nevada, Batjer is the daughter of former Nevada Supreme Court Justice Cameron Batjer and traces her lineage to some of that state’s oldest ranching families through her father. She received a bachelor’s degree from Mills College in Oakland and took a job as a technical writer at Bechtel Corporation from 1977-1981.

Batjer took a leave of absence from the company at the age of 23 to run for a seat on the board of directors of the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District. She lost. It proved to be her only run for political office but just the beginning of her political involvement. She was director of political planning for the National Women's Political Caucus from 1980-1981 and took her first government job as a political liaison for U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberg, who had been a Bechtel executive.

She also worked for Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, where she met his military aide Colin Powell. When Powell became national security advisor to President Ronald Reagan in 1987, she went with him. At the White House, Batjer was a national security affairs special assistant for President Reagan and deputy executive secretary for the National Security Council until 1989.

Along the way, she studied international public policy at Johns Hopkins University and national and international security at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

She became an assistant to the Secretary of the Navy in 1990 and stayed for two years before heading to California as chief deputy director at the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Five years later, Batjer, a Democrat, was promoted to undersecretary at the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency under Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s administration. Three years later, in December 2000, she migrated to Nevada and went to work as Republican Governor Kenny Guinn’s chief of staff.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger brought her back to California in 2003 as his Cabinet secretary in charge of running day-to-day operations. She was in the job a year before becoming embroiled in a conflict-of-interest controversy for joining the board of Bank Holdings, Inc. in Nevada, a month after it bought a bank charter in Costa Mesa, California. The company also had a loan office in Sacramento.

As Cabinet secretary, Batjer oversaw the Department of Corporations and the Department of Financial Institutions. The latter regulates banks, mortgage brokers and other lenders.

A month later, in October 2004, she was rumored to be on the way out and left at the end of the year to a job as vice president of public policy and corporate social responsibility at Caesars.

Governor Aide's Bank Position Prompts Concern, Legal Review (by Robert Salladay and Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times)

Brokering Consensus at the Capitol (by Joe Mathews and Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times)

Marybel Batjer (LinkedIn)