Latest / Real State / Staffing State Legislatures: Doing More With Less, with Jay Hartz

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Staffing State Legislatures: Doing More With Less, with Jay Hartz · Real State

• 0:00
  Our goal is to be a bit like the offensive line on a football team.
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  You shouldn't know our names, everything should go perfectly.
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  And likely the only time we exist is when something has broken down.
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  This is Real State, a podcast from CSG South.
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  Join us as we talk with policymakers and public leaders shaping state-level decisions across the South
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  and explore how ideas move from policy to real impact.
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  Good morning and welcome to Real State.
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  I'm your host, Lindsey Gray.
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  When most people picture a legislature, they imagine lawmakers debating bills under the dome,
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  casting votes and wrapping up when the session ends.
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  But the truth is, state government doesn't pause when lawmakers go home.
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  Across the South and especially in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,
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  legislatures are often made up of part-time elected officials,
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  supported by highly skilled professional staff who keep the institution running year-round.
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  Today's conversation goes behind the curtain of that reality.
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  Because the Legislative Research Commission is one of those hidden engines of democracy,
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  the kind of institution that every day people rarely see,
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  but one that is absolutely essential to how Kentucky's legislature functions.
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  Today, we're joined by Jay Hurtz, Executive Director of the Legislative Research Commission,
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  the agency that provides the research, staffing, and operational backbone of the Kentucky General Assembly.
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  I'm grateful you're here, Jay. Welcome to Real State.
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  Thank you for having me, Lindsey.
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  So let's jump in.
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  Before we go into staffing challenges and modernization,
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  I want to start with the big picture, because some states are not set up like Kentucky,
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  and most citizens may not even understand what an agency like the Legislative Research Commission does.
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  Let's start there. What is the LRC and why is it so central to the functioning of Kentucky's
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  legislature? Well, Lindsey, I'll start off by sitting as a legislative staffer.
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  I'm a little uncomfortable even having this conversation.
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  Our goal is to be a bit like the offensive line on a football team.
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  You shouldn't know our names. Everything should go perfectly.
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  And likely the only time we exist is when something has broken down.
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  But to your question, there are 138 members of the Kentucky General Assembly,
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  100 in the house, 38 in the sunnet, and all of them are part time.
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  And they have lives, careers, families, interests that exist outside of their time spent as a legislator.
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  So if you think about it, our session essentially runs from January through the middle of April.
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  They're here all the time during that period.
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  And then there are other times than they're not here a whole lot, or they may only be here
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  in Frankfurt once or twice a month. So that's why the Legislative Research Commission exists.
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  We are the professional staff that are here every day in order to service the needs of the members
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  and make sure that they're successful. If there's sort of a one in one A in the conversation,
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  the one would be members. The A would be the constituents that are coming to see them.
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  Particularly during session. So we spend a lot of time making sure that the guest experience
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  is, I don't know if we'd ever go with first class, but it's as good and useful as it can be.
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  When you come visit the your member of the Kentucky General Assembly, or
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  or go to a committee meeting because there's a bill that you're interested in. I always like to make sure
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  that both members and constituents, I can't guarantee their success, but I can help make sure that
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  they both have the tools that they need to accomplish what they need to accomplish
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  while the general assembly is in session. Wonderful. I know they're thankful to have you all
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  as that backbone and the behind the scenes, wizard behind the curtain. So one thing that you
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  pointed to and we talk about often in in the south, all of our legislatures are part time. I'll
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  put that in air quotes because we know how much work goes on for our legislators even outside of
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  session, but governing is also not part time. So from your seat, what does the year-round work of
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  the state legislature actually look like behind the scenes for your team when the legislators
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  leave from session and you all are still working year-round? So I often like to say that the
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  LRC and its staff ultimately exists for two days and it's really not even two complete days.
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  It's from about four o'clock PM until 11.59 PM on the day before we go to veto recess in on the last
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  legislative day. The two most beautiful mangled words in Latin that we use are Sinidai. That's not
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  exactly how you would say Sinidai if we're speaking if we were in Latin class, but we say Sinidai.
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  So ultimately we exist to make sure that on those two time limited periods, the general assembly
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  has the ability to vote on all the bills that it needs to vote on in order to get to the governor
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  for consideration of his ability to have, just be able to act on those bills. But if you sort of think
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  about the trail that leads members to be able to vote on have to take knowledgeable votes,
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  though on those two evenings, we can't discount the meeting they had during what we describe as the
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  interim or those times when the general assembly is not in session, the House and Senate combined to
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  become interim joint committees and they meet once a month. So it may have been something that was
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  said during that interim joint committee that gives them what they need to be able to take an
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  informed vote. It could be a meeting that they had with the constituent during the course of
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  the summer that provides them what they needed even could have been an email or a letter that they're
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  legislative assistant help them deal with. So if you think about there's if the tip of the spear
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  are those two evenings, if you go back back that spear, you the tip of the spear doesn't do any
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  damage unless you have the leverage on the shaft of the spear. So we sort of have organized ourselves
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  and exist so that members have what they need during those times that they absolutely have to have them.
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  To oversee all the professionals and supporting everything that you do as you just walked through
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  several things, but you also have professionals that are, you know, bill drafting to committee work,
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  as you mentioned, to state budget oversight and just overall administrative operations. I mean,
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  there's a lot of layers to what you do. So besides caffeine, what does it take to organizationally
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  keep that running smoothly? So there's about 350 full-time staff that work for the Kentucky General
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  Assembly. That's closer to 500 when the general assembly is in session. We have a lot of folks that
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  are what we call general session employees or GA employees that come to work with the clerks
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  while we're in session, but 350 full-time employees and we're sort of a soup to nutts kind of organization.
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  We have a full service library. We have a full service print shop. If you need a document
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  transported between your office and someone else's office to get a signature, we have careers.
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  So it takes a lot of people to make this thing go. If you think about a normal legislative day,
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  there's 138 members of general assembly. It's not unusual for us to have a couple thousand constituents
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  joining us during the day. I'm not good at math, but I know what Geometric progression is. And if you
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  just think about all the human interactions that are happening here during the course of the day,
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  it would be foolish of me to think that I could keep up with that. So I have really smart people
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  who work with me. I have to say I let them, I'm fortunate, they let me pretend like I'm their boss,
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  but I have really smart, perceptive people who work here. So I have to trust them and provide
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  their real clear guidance on what our standard operating procedures are. And I think the other
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  answer to your question, and I don't know if you'll be able to, Lindsey will be able to see my visual
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  aid, but I don't know if you will, but if you think this is as a venn diagram, generally we have two
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  kinds of people that work here. The one side of the venn diagram are creative people who wouldn't
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  survive in a corporate environment, but can show up to work on time. And the other is adrenaline addicts.
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  And they're sort of usually an overlap between those two. I'm sure that I exist where those two venn
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  diagrams overlap, but we work under incredibly tight timelines that everything we do
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  will ultimately end up in the statute books. So our failure rate essentially has to be zero. So tight
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  deadlines, high accuracy. And so that's why I have really smart people that I have to trust
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  to be able to do great things. Well, I've had the pleasure of working with several of the people
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  that you have mentioned, and it's always great working with your team, particularly on the Southern
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  Legislative Conference, which we are preparing now in Kentucky later this summer. So you've talked
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  about operational complexity, intensifying during session, you fast pace, deadlines are real, you know,
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  public is watching. And on top of it, you'll have a capital renovation going on. So there's a lot of
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  layers to all of that. I think asking you to walk through the day of a legislative staff with a
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  general assembly is in full swing is probably a difficult thing to do. But if, you know, unlike
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  Congress, many state lawmakers have fewer staff. And so how does a central agency like LRC help ensure
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  legislators can still serve constituents effectively? So as I mentioned, there's a 138 members of the
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  general assembly. And except for the speaker and the senate president, none of them have their own
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  staff. So when they're elected and they come to Frankfurt, they're presiding officer will assign
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  them an office. But it's my responsibility to assign them a legislative assistance. And in many ways,
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  LAs are sort of the hub around a lot where a lot of members interaction with staff. But
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  the LA is their first point of contact for for constituent communications,
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  scheduling meetings with other members, constituents, lobbyists, keeping up with when their committee
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  meetings are. So all members have an LA, many members share LAs. We have staff that are assigned to
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  each one of the House and Senate standing committees. So if a member has an idea for a bill and they
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  want to get a bill request, they would contact our deputy director for committee and staff coordination.
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  Let her know what their bill request is. And then she goes through a process of identifying
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  which committee of jurisdiction should draft that bill. They that the BR is head forward onto them.
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  And then they contact the member and work directly with the member in order to get that bill drafted.
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  Those staff are also the same staff that will be there when that committee is meeting. So they know
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  how to run the committees. They know what's in the bills. So that sort of gets back to your
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  unified staff question. Kentucky is unique in that where the state, the state and the country that
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  has the most unified staff, which I guess is like most things in life it's good and bad.
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  But I think ultimately it has more benefits, has more firtues than it has vices.
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  And that primary benefit is that when a member comes, we always sponsor a good example of this is
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  we always sponsor a new member orientation in December of even numbered here. So we'll have a new member
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  orientation this December. We don't have a lot of turf battles or pride of ownership in this organization.
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  So it's we're so focused on providing services to members. So you can ask anybody anything in a member
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  will ultimately get what they need from the person who is the boss of providing that service.
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  I think a a good example of that happened just recently. Had a special election,
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  new member got sworn in the first day of session. We are in the process. It's installed. So I won't
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  say we're installing, but we're in the process of perfecting a constituent relationship management
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  tool that we're using. And the outgoing member consented to have all of their constituent
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  information provided to the new member. So new member gets sworn in the first day of session.
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  And that Friday of the first day of session they were able to send out a legislative news letter
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  to 7,000 constituents in their district. So they weren't starting from absolutely nothing.
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  They were starting from something. And that's our goal is when we get new members that they should be
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  worried about what bills are going to introduce, what speeches they're going to make. That's why
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  the people sent them to Frankfurt was to do legislative business. They may be worried about how to
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  decorate their office, but they shouldn't be worried about where their office is. Can their constituents
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  find their office? Are they going to have stationary? All of the back end things that they don't have to
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  worry about. We worry about so that they can focus on what's really important and the reasons why
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  they were elected. What sounds like your practices and your systems that you have in place to
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  knowledge transfer and to make sure the legislators are set up for success are definitely some of the
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  kind of secret sauce that we see that happens in Kentucky. But even with all of that, you know,
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  state legislators as well as staff are being asked to do even more every day with their time.
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  And it leads to an important kind of point where often personnel or resources is limited. And
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  where we're faced with budget cuts or other just concerns that may be coming down the pipeline. So
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  doing more with less is kind of typically the reality across state agencies. So from your perspective,
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  what are the biggest operational realities facing legislative staff or state agencies just right
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  now with some of those concerns that doing more with less?
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  Then, again, I think there's a couple different answers to your question, but I'm going to choose
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  choose this one. Which is there's an inherent periods of forced consideration built into the
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  legislative process. So what we're seeing from both members, the public and media is more and more
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  immediate access to information. So that's a lot of what we think through is balancing the immediacy
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  is something happening and the due diligence we need to make sure that what we're putting
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  onto a website or sending out through social media is actually accurate. We have a document
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  it's both electronic and paper here Kentucky it's called the legislative record.
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  It kind of looks like a the paper version looks like a newspaper because it's actually printed
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  by a newspaper company. And you can go there and you can see everything that happened
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  on the last legislative day and it's also a bit of a historic record of everything that's happened
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  to a bill since it's been introduced. So an example of that is
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  committee meet, committee considers bills, committee might add amendments. In the last few years,
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  we are one of our standard practices has been we will post a copy of the bills and amendments
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  that were acted upon in a committee to that committee's website. It's a pretty short time frame
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  from my perspective. It's probably not quick enough for other people's perspective. But we have
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  built some time in for staff to be able to confer with each other and their notes to make sure
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  that what's actually been put on the website is an accurate reflection of what happened
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  in that committee that day. Lots of people like to talk about AI right now,
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  where AI fits into all of this. I'm sure that it does somehow, how it ultimately will, I think it is,
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  is to be a bit sorted out. So Jay, you talked about the legislative record and I'm sure that at times
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  that can seem like a pretty great strain because you're getting it out there so quickly. And as you
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  mentioned, balancing what happened in the day with confidentiality and all the things, but still
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  trying to be really transparent and responsive to the constituents. So, you know, besides the
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  legislative record, what might be another strain that you are facing, whether it's staffing capacity,
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  you mentioned technology with AI and some of those unknowns, retention, I think has come up in
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  several of our states as maybe a key strain for them. Just what are you seeing in Kentucky?
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  So, I think this is true, not just in Kentucky. One of the strengths I see for
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  being a part of CSG South is the legislative service directors group that CSG sponsors for us
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  and our ability to sit down with our peers. And oftentimes we talk about what's keeping us
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  up at night as a way to have that conversation. And one of the things that is keeping us all up at night
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  is, and they're sort of two sides at the same coin, which is talent attraction and talent retention.
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  So, if you think about the typical non-partisan legislative staffer, even before you get to what
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  their job is, you're looking for a pretty unique person. So, if you're a non-partisan staffer,
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  you are agreeing that when you come to work every day, whatever political proclivities that you have,
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  you will put them on a coat hook and leave them in your car. And when you're here during the work day,
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  your primary focus is helping members of the General Assembly accomplish what they need to accomplish.
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  So, you may or may not agree with what you're doing, but you see the higher calling, the service,
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  in helping a member of the General Assembly serve their constituents. So, that's pretty special.
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  This is now my 27th year with the Kentucky General Assembly, and I haven't had an original thought
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  in 27 years, because my whole time here has been spent either helping Senate presidents or the members
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  of the Legislative Research Commission solve the problems that they need to solve. So,
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  my name is never going to be in the newspaper is being the smart guy who figured out a problem,
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  because that's not my job. My job is to provide good actionable information to decision makers
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  so that they can make the decision and then go implemented. So, one, their willingness to be nonpartisan
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  in what some people describe as an increasingly partisan world, the other is
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  we work weird, crazy hours during certain parts of the year. This is,
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  this, when we're in session, this place is a 24 hour day operation, working weird hours,
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  long hours, knowing there will be parts of the year where you're relying on your spouse or partner
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  to attend to important family duties. You know, you're going to miss this time of your basketball
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  games or concerts or you won't be able to go to every single performance of whatever play or musical
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  your kid is in, but once again, your family understands that what you're doing, there's a
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  nobility to what you're doing and you're willing to make that greater sacrifice for the institution.
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  And the third one related to that is, I don't know if I've seen it in people that were attempting
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  to recruit to work as a legislative research commission and it may be the first two
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  legs of this block them out, but it appears that Lindsay, people, much younger than I am,
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  probably the same age that you are, appeared in maybe want something different out of their
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  professional careers. I'm not quite sure what work life balance is. That's likely a personal choice
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  that people make. We're continuing to see people who are willing to work the hours
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  with the understanding that what they're doing is is ultimately pretty important.
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  And that was going to be my next thing. Let's kind of flip that question and those strains on
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  its head and what are the real advantages of building a career in state government, especially
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  inside a legislature. I know you talked about nobility in what they're doing and just really
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  servants heart, just really in it for the public service of it all. And I imagine that's a
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  characteristic that you look for in an interview process. I'm not even sure how you'll go about
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  finding those best and brightest with the characteristics that you're explaining. But
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  one of those advantages and maybe some tips for how you're finding those people.
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  Why do folks stick around? What I have found is, so there's about 350 people who work here,
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  that's a lot for me, but if you look at the rest of state government, we're a very small agency
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  compared to other parts of state government. We wouldn't even be a rounding error in Medicaid.
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  So we're pretty small. The great part about that is you get to know everyone you work with pretty well.
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  And there are times of the year where you will spend more time with your co-workers here than you
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  will with your family. And we really do develop close relationships with the folks that we work with,
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  particularly when, as I mentioned before, high stress tight dead lines. When you have folks that you
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  can trust that they're going to do, what they need to do, so you can do what you need to do. It's all
• 27:55
  going to be all right. Those tight-knit relationships, I think, are a lot of what keep people working
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  for the legislative research commission. You have some great people working for you. I've had the
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  pleasure of meeting many of them, very committed to what you all are doing in Kentucky supporting the
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  legislature, great attitudes. So it just really solid people as you're mentioning. And they do. They
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  stay around for a very long time. So you have a great group and it shows. And the, you know, the modern
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  legislature isn't just managing staffing levels as you just pointed out. It's balancing that experience,
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  but also the evolution that comes along with just running the legislative institution and
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  heavily relying on that deep institutional knowledge and memory that those individuals that have been
• 28:48
  with you for a long time bring, but also responding to the rapid changes that we've already touched on
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  today, like the technology or transparency or just the access and just increasing that making it
• 28:58
  faster. So in that modern legislative office, it's got to be powered by multiple generations of
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  public servants working side by side. And this is something that that LSA group talks about often as
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  well that you're a part of. And one of the real strengths of legislative staff agency is that you
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  all bring together people with that knowledge, but you also make room for those newer professionals
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  that are willing to get in there and roll up their sleeves and learn and train and be part of
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  the state government. So from your perspective, what does each generation, and you don't have to go
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  through all of them, but that you're seeing on your staff, that what does each generation bring to the
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  table that especially is valuable for that modern legislative office? So I'm Gen X. You could either
• 29:52
  like me or dislike me because I'm Gen X and Millennials made, made a lot more sense to me
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  I was actually at a CSG South event and the presenter that CSG South brought in pointed out that
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  when Millennials were asking why it wasn't a challenging question, it was truly a sort of cultural
• 30:23
  orientation question. Why are you doing it? Meaning explain to me why? What has gone into this
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  stock process in order to get you to where you are? So was it you're doing it wrong? It's why are you
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  doing it that way? As a Gen X, I never would have asked that question of my of my boomer bosses.
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  Things would have not gone well for me. I either you had to watch what they were doing and figure out
• 31:00
  from what they were doing or just do what you were told and figure it out, figure it out for yourself.
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  So Lizzy, I think a way things have changed and I think for the better, the folks that we're getting
• 31:16
  at least are willing to show up to work on time and have good questions. And I think as their
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  supervisor you have to be willing to accept that question because in most instances it's coming from
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  I want to understand why this organization or why you personally are doing in that way
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  into sort of the close the loop on why that's important for passing a long institutional knowledge
• 31:52
  within the context of a legislature. Oftentimes we don't have a lot of flexibility on how we do things
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  or why we're doing it because it's either related to the cost what's in the Constitution
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  or in statute or in the House or Senate rules. So explaining to folks we're doing it this way
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  because there's a specific rule in the House or Senate that lays out this is the way that you have
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  to do it. That's the standard and in some instances the standard is pretty prescriptive.
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  So I think that the younger folks we're seeing who are more willing to ask questions sometimes
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  force those of us who are maybe a little bit more along in their careers to be better at passing
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  how we're passing along that information. I will say though and if we imagine the
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  Grandpa Simpson yelling at the clouds my yelling at the at the cloud moment is I would encourage
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  those younger folks to put their phones down. There's a world outside whatever is happening on your phone.
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  So put your phones down. I'm an old guy now so I I RL I think means in real life maybe
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  maybe you live your life in real life a little bit more than what you are and you might actually learn
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  something. I will wrap this up with I RL when we get to that point but these staffing and operational
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  challenges are found in every state and regardless of size or politics or structure you're all
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  navigating kind of shared opportunities of how to modernize how to retain talent, how to sustain
• 34:07
  sustain strong trusted effective institutions because that really cannot be lost in all of this whether
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  it's modernization or generational changes remaining effective and trusted is kind of the backbone of
• 34:23
  state legislature and without that I think it has the potential of all falling apart. So one of the
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  reasons CHG South exists is to obviously help states learn from each other so what are some kind of best
• 34:39
  practices or shared practices operational lessons lessons that go across state lines that
• 34:46
  you've learned or you've been able to share with other states.
• 34:49
  So people hate to talk about COVID I don't like to talk about COVID but we were going through
• 35:00
  COVID we were we were sharing information about what we were doing to try to react to what was going
• 35:12
  on at any particular moment and for for myself and my organization I think that had two positive
• 35:22
  effects it was one it proved that I wasn't the crazy person that there were other people who were
• 35:29
  experiencing similar stresses and it was also helpful to know that largely we were all arriving at
• 35:38
  similar solutions to those now bizarre questions that we were asking ourselves so to be able to
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  talk to talk to my peers in in other states to know that similar things are keeping them up at night
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  and you know we will exchange documentation you know whether or not how much telework continues
• 36:14
  to be a conversation in amongst legislatures in the south so being able to see how other states
• 36:23
  are handling their their telework policies has been very helpful so just to have people to talk to
• 36:32
  to so that when you pop your head out of the go for whole you'll be able to go back down with some
• 36:39
  good good actionable information that that helps you be a better leader and before we close I want
• 36:46
  to end with a question that really gets that leadership because what we what you do requires not
• 36:54
  just management but stewardship of the institution so this is a signature question we're asking all
• 37:01
  of our guests but what is the best piece of professional advice you've ever received that continues
• 37:06
  to shape the way you lead today so very early in my career in the Kentucky State Senate
• 37:14
  my my then boss was having a very public spat with the governor and I was in a meeting where
• 37:28
  I was not yet an adult so I would say the adults were having a discussion about what to do about
• 37:35
  that situation and one of the the name of one of the governor's staff came up and I can either confirm
• 37:44
  or deny I said something disparaging about them and the Senate president stopped the meeting and
• 37:53
  looked at me and said he may or may not have said I don't disagree with what you just said
• 38:01
  but he went on to say what I need you to understand is governors and Senate presidents principles
• 38:10
  principle elected officials are going to say nice not nice things about each other in public
• 38:17
  but as a staff person you have a responsibility to maintain good working relationships
• 38:27
  with the governor's staff because at some point we're going to stop fighting and we're going to have
• 38:32
  to work out a deal and if if the governor and I aren't talking to each other that's one thing if our
• 38:40
  staffs are unable to speak with each other that's another and that made a lot of sense to me then
• 38:48
  it makes a lot of sense to me now you know having a basic level of of professional respect for the people
• 38:56
  that you're ultimately going to have to deal with I think was it was a good lesson for me to learn at
• 39:02
  the time and that advice has has served me well over the course of my entire career.
• 39:09
  Awesome thank you so much for sharing such a personal story with us as well. So Jay thank you
• 39:18
  for your service your leadership and for giving us such a clear look into the real operational
• 39:24
  backbone of the Kentucky General Assembly. We're excited to host the 2026 Southern Legislative
• 39:30
  Conference with you and the Kentucky team this summer in Lexington. The Southern Legislative
• 39:36
  Conference this year is in Lexington from July 11th to the 15th and I would like to extend
• 39:44
  an invitation from myself to you to come to Lexington it's going to be a great event.
• 39:52
  We're going to go to Keyland there will be Bourbon there will be music and there will be
• 39:58
  there will be great policy discussions.
• 40:01
  Lindsay's leadership with CSG South has created a staff organization called Sail. If you're a legislative
• 40:12
  staffer and you're not involved in sail you should be they have some really great webinars coming up.
• 40:21
  So it's a it's a way for you to be able to build your career and get to know people who do your job
• 40:31
  in other states. So as I said before you know you're not the crazy one. So Lexington July 11th through
• 40:38
  the 15th registration is open. I've already registered so go to the CSG South website and register
• 40:47
  for the Southern Legislative Conference. This conversation is such an important reminder while
• 40:53
  legislators may serve part-time democracy requires full-time support and the people who staff
• 40:59
  our state legislatures are essential to making government work. And to our listeners thank you
• 41:05
  for being part of real estate more conversations like this are available at csg South dot org.
• 41:13
  I'm Lindsay Gray. Let's keep it real. Thank you for joining us today on real state where we
• 41:20
  keep it real about what really matters.