Here's a quick test: Which word doesn't belong?

(a) Lean.

(b) Efficient.

(c) Visionary.

(d) Government.

This morning, a state oversight commission will hear all about Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to move (d) a little closer to (a), (b) and (c) by merging the two human resources departments into one uber-personnel organization.

Fusing the 77-year-old State Personnel Board and the Department of Personnel Administration would cut an estimated $6.7 million from the government's administrative costs over two years.

The blended unit, the California Department of Human Resources, would take over on July 1, 2012, tying together two bureaucratic factions with a tense history.

SPB administers the state's civil service system. Its five-member board hears disciplinary disputes, among other responsibilities. The panel itself is a constitutional body that Brown's plan leaves intact.

The governor established DPA in 1981 to represent management in labor contract talks and to handle other non-merit employment issues.

Over time, the departments' responsibilities morphed and now overlap in spots. At one point they sued each other over which department had authority to resolve workplace disputes (the personnel board won). Several state reports over the years have suggested they consolidate.

If the merger happens – and this column's sense from talking to labor and government leaders is that it will – a subplot will be what happens to the state's push to modernize hiring.

DPA launched a special human resources modernization unit a few years ago aimed at streamlining the state's Byzantine hiring process. The state has too many job classifications, takes up to six months to produce candidate lists after testing and pays different wages to people with similar skills and jobs. It's a mess.

"Unless you start simplifying the system the state will never be able to attract good public servants," said Dave Gilb, the former DPA director who launched "HR Mod."

The program scored a few wins: It axed or consolidated about 300 of the state's 4,000-plus job classes and put more state job tests on the Web. But like most government programs, HR Mod was hamstrung by the budget and "a lot of false starts" on testing, probation and other reforms, Gilb said.

The next steps must "come from focused leadership from a new department with a certain accountability for the WHOLE rather than some component parts," said Gilb, who came out of retirement to work pro bono on the merger plan.

That puts a different spin on Brown's proposal. Success won't be changing an organizational flow chart or pinching a few pennies. Success will be measured by that most difficult metric: changes in a government culture.

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Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at sacbee.com/blogs.

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