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The clock is ticking for the panel that Gov. Bobby Jindal created to remedy the state’s multi-year financial shortfall. The journey commenced in late July and must be concluded by Dec. 15, when the panel’s recommendations are due to the Legislature. While the trajectory looks simple on paper, the route taken thus far has been anything but direct. In fact, the process that has brought Jindal’s panel to where it is now—this limbo of sorts—is worth noting upfront.

More or less, the action started in August when a set of advisory committees began meeting in public to discuss cost-saving ideas and action steps. After weeks of discourse, the resulting items were then forwarded to Jindal’s panel. But when its full membership gathered in early October to review these findings, recommendations were only “accepted” rather than “approved.”

The accepted recommendations were then sent back to the appropriate advisory committees [again] for another round of public hearings so that written public comments could be accepted. The process then circled back to the full panel in late October, when the new public comments on the previously heard recommendations made their way onto the agenda [again].

At this point, no one is blaming the panel for not being thorough. But these series of bureaucratic chutes and political ladders have led many observers to wonder why the panel was named the Commission on Streamlining Government. With the state facing a $1 billion shortfall in the 2010-11 budget year, Jindal has charged the commission with identifying $802 million worth of savings. It’s a tall, vague order that arrived with very few instructions.

Pearson Cross, head of the political science department at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, says the commission’s work so far has served only political purposes—like distracting attention away from the dramatic decisions ahead and buying time from the ever-present clock. “This is political cover, and it’s working,” Cross says. “This is a classic pattern. Streamlining committees seem to be an every-four-years kind of thing, with new governors creating them to show they’re doing something.”

In the case of the administration, commission members contend Jindal’s team came to the table with only two clear goals—and one has already been torpedoed. That transpired when Treasurer John Kennedy called for—and received—a partial delay of a planned $100 million computer overhaul the administration was pushing. It was one of many small wins Kennedy has managed as the most outspoken member of the commission.

As for the other goal, members say the administration wants the commission to recommend a performance-based budgeting system for the state that would be based on the reinventing government strategies of David Osborne of the Minnesota-based Public Strategies Group. The system calls for benchmarks that agencies would have to meet in order to receive funding, and a process that could potentially allow a department to take over another agency’s program if they can deliver those outcomes more efficiently.

According to a source close to the streamlining commission, this recommendation prompted a closed-door meeting among statewide elected officials—Jindal was not invited—to discuss the administration’s plans. In particular, several of the elected heads at the meeting voiced concern over losing not only control of their individual budgeting powers, but also possibly pieces of their departments. “It’s a turf war,” the source says.

House Speaker Jim Tucker, a Terrytown Republican, says he’s in a holding pattern and reserving judgment until the commission moves forward with an agenda. But he is worried that divisiveness could hamper progress when the Legislature convenes its regular session next year to consider the recommendations. “At this point, it’s all still in the oven and not baked yet,” Tucker says. “I just hope that the folks who are getting defensive will be willing to hear the recommendations that are put forth.”

As chairman of the commission, Sen. Jack Donahue, a Mandeville Democrat, also is playing a key role. Early on in the process, he brought in Morris McTigue of the Mercatus Center, a pro-bono consultant, to draw up recommendations. But McTigue’s ideas on consolidations and reorganizations have been sullied by lawmakers, statewide elected officials and department heads. Under McTigue’s plans, the agriculture and insurance commissioners would see some of their authorities stripped; a Commerce Department would be created; and the Wildlife and Fisheries Department would be essentially shuttered—to name a few.

While Donahue has since publicly distanced himself from McTigue’s plan, members say he’s still pushing McTigue’s agenda privately and urging the chairmen of the different advisory committees to take up the proposals. One line of thought is that McTigue’s success would be Donahue’s success, since the senator brought the consultant to the commission. “The Mercatus Center recommendations are far-reaching, but we gave the researchers no instructions,” Donahue said in a prepared statement. “We put everything on the table. What we must decide is which of the recommendations are usable in the state of Louisiana and which are not.”

If there’s an individual winner to emerge from the process thus far, it’s unquestionably Kennedy, who has proven that his newly acquired Republican credentials won’t stop him from questioning the GOP administration. In turn, the administration has taken Kennedy’s threat seriously, as evidenced by their compromise to hold off on most of the $100 million computer upgrade. But Kennedy also has met resistance—the commission did not accept his recommendation to create a single board for higher education. Donahue ruled the motion out of order, explaining the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission has been charged with examining the state’s higher-education system. “We need a government structure for higher education that looks like someone designed it on purpose,” Kennedy says.

Kennedy also is advocating a proposal to reduce the state’s workforce by 5,000 positions annually for a period of three years. The 15,000 jobs would basically come from unfilled vacancies—he said Louisiana’s turnover rate fluctuates between 15% and 22%. “No one would be fired,” Kennedy says, adding that the goal would be to establish only five layers of management in each department, or one manager for every 10 or more employees.

If there’s anyone not getting the attention they deserve, it’s Roy O. Martin, who serves as the commission’s vice chairman. He’s an Alexandria native, owns Roy O. Martin Lumber Company and was appointed by Jindal to represent private interests. He has personally identified more than $8.8 million in real savings—and none of them are easy. In all, he has a half-dozen recommendations on the table. Martin wants the Department of Transportation and Development to get rid of an airplane and three ferry routes; the Department of Safety and Corrections to outsource pharmaceutical services and fee collections; the Department of Health and Hospitals to consolidate behavioral health; and the Governor’s Office to outsource commodity inventory.

To date, the commission has formally received 44 recommendations for cost savings and efficiencies, of which seven came from individual members. It’s clear that, from an operational standpoint, the commission has been structured in such a way that it’s relying on a number of advisory committees for the lion’s share of recommendations. But thus far, critics argue the system has given way to nothing more than politics and personal agendas, rather than a unified approach.

While the commission still has another few weeks to finish its work, critics argue that the outlook is less than positive. Members, meanwhile, are urging folks to be like Tucker, to wait and see. Either way, the clock is ticking, and the noise is hard to ignore.