Republican Governor Joe Lombardo is recommending significant overhauls in how state government operates. Officials presented the proposed changes to the Senate Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 431 is a massive government reform bill to make the state's bureaucracy run more efficiently.
Among its many provisions, the bill would remove the cap on public employee pay and creates the positions of chief information officer and chief innovation office for the state.
Lombardo's Chief of Staff Ben Kieckhefer presented the measure to lawmakers.
"Unfortunately, over the years, the operations of state government have grown stale," he said. "There are too many restrictions on how we operate. It is too difficult to hire people. It is a burdensome paper-intensive process to make simple, low-dollar changes to legislatively approved budgets."
The bill also creates a discretionary fund that the governor's office could tap into for "high-leverage projects."
Critics of the legislation say it's a power grab by the governor.
