
A Blueprint for a State Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
Welcome to the Cicero Institute’s resource hub for state leaders ready to launch their own Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—an office dedicated to cutting red tape, modernizing regulations, and ensuring the administrative state works on behalf of citizens.
Below, you’ll find practical tools, proven strategies, and real-world examples from Virginia and beyond to help governors become “CEOs” of their executive branch and manage the rulemaking process pursuant to the public will and interest.
Why Create a State-Level DOGE?
Governors as CEOs
Modern governance requires dynamic leadership and effective management of sprawling agencies. A state DOGE centralizes regulatory review and oversight, giving governors the authority, resources, and data they need to make government more efficient.
Public Will and Public Interest
Overgrown regulatory codes harm job creation, limit competition, and pile burdens on citizens. DOGEs restore balance, ensuring that regulations protect public health, safety, and welfare—without strangling innovation.
Combat Regulatory Capture
The most powerful incumbent firms capture regulatory agencies to push rules and compliance burdens that bulwark their oligopolistic advantages, undermining competition and stifling innovation.
Protect Taxpayer Dollars
Citizens need confidence their government is a wise spender, isn’t wasting money, and prioritizes the highest value investments to benefit all citizens in the state.
Data-Driven Reform
With powerful AI tools, cost-benefit analyses, and feedback from industry and citizens, state-level DOGEs can ensure each regulation’s economic benefits outweigh its costs.
Proven Success
Virginia’s experience with a similar body has generated annual savings in excess of $1.2 billion for citizens, slashed professional licensing waiting times by 85 percent, and cut the cost of new home construction by $24,000. Idaho, Montana, and other states have similarly realized significant regulatory and economic gains from regulatory and efficiency reforms.
Core Pillars of a Successful State DOGE
1
Legal Legitimacy (Express Delegation)
- Ensure clear statutory authority for all regulatory powers and processes exercised by unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch.
- Incorporate “nondelegation” safeguards to stay within the legislature’s intent.
2
Procedural Integrity (Following the APA)
- Build on your state’s administrative procedures act (APA) or enact a robust rulemaking process if lacking.
- Ensure full notice-and-comment periods, transparent drafting, and an explicit foundation for cost-benefit analyses.Automatically expire rules on preset schedules.
3
Economic Benefits Must Outweigh Costs
- Institutionalize robust cost-benefit analysis (CBA) for all proposed and existing rules.
- Require agencies to publish data, methods, and stakeholder comments as part of each CBA.
4
Justify Spending (Audit Every Dollar)
- Review every dollar of state spending to identify waste, fraud, abuse, as well as spending that fails to align with the needs of the state.
- Establish transparency tools that give citizens a comprehensive understanding of how agencies spend money and the metrics the state uses to evaluate whether to keep funding that program or entity.
5
Merit-Based Governance and Civil Service Excellence
- Recruit talented, mission-driven individuals to staff the DOGE.
- Establish data-oriented performance metrics and accountability processes.
Key Steps for Setting Up a State DOGE
Below is a roadmap inspired by Virginia’s Office of Regulatory Management (ORM), successes in Idaho, and broader analyses from the Cicero Institute’s policy research, including our June 2024 publication, Confronting Regulatory Inertia.
A. Build a Regulatory Catalog
- Identify All Rules, Guidance, and Restrictions
- Mandate that all regulations and interpretive guidance be published online for easy public access.Example: Virginia Regulatory Town Hall consolidates all new regulations, guidance documents, meeting minutes, and more.Assign each agency (or leverage third-party tools like QuantGov) to tally words such as “shall,” “must,” and other mandatory terms in the administrative code.
- Virginia’s agencies did this as part of their 2018–2021 Regulatory Reform Pilot Program and repeated it under Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order 19 (see below).
- Catalog Delegation
- Determine the extent to which each agency is delegated rulemaking authority
- Assign express delegation, implicit delegation, and non-delegated buckets to existing rules
- Flag all rules that lack express delegations
B. Adopt a Regulatory Reduction Goal
- One-In, One-Out: Cap new rules by eliminating or simplifying old ones. President Trump experimented with a “2-for-1” requirement in his first term and recently announced a “10-for-1” approach.
- Percentage Reductions: Governor Youngkin’s EO 19 set a 25% reduction target for state agencies. Oklahoma and Ohio have done similarly.
- Sunset Provisions: Embed automatic expiration in each new regulation. Idaho famously let all regulations expire and selectively re-adopted only those that were necessary.
C. Require Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA)
- Justify Every Rule: State agencies must show that each regulation’s economic and societal benefits exceed projected costs.
- CBA Manuals and Training: Virginia’s concise Regulatory Economic Analysis Manual offers a blueprint for training officials to conduct straightforward, transparent analyses.
- Public Accountability: Publish CBAs online for comment, incorporate stakeholder input, and allow legal challenges when data is incomplete or flawed.
D. Centralize Coordination Under DOGE
- Scrutinize Every Dollar of Spending: Every office in the state has pet projects and constituents, but even spending in those areas must pass the efficiency and effectiveness test. Giving one office authority, and holding it accountable, to question even long-standing spending will increase the likelihood every dollar across the entire government is fully scrutinized.
- Create a Lean but Empowered Office: Virginia’s ORM is run by just five full-time employees. It provides top-down guidance, reviews agency proposals, and coordinates policy across departments.
- Resolve Tricky Questions: Agencies inevitably confront complexities—like how to count an added compliance option, or whether altering guidance counts as a “reduction.” A centralized office ensures consistency.
DOGE Toolkit:
Centralized Coordination
Download:
ALEC Model Bill Establishing an Office of Regulatory Management
E. Leverage Technology
- AI for Regulatory Streamlining
- Automated scans compare regulations to the underlying statutes to detect where agencies have exceeded legislative intent.
- Online Transparency
- Each state should provide web portals for public comment and real-time updates on regulatory changes.
- Example: Virginia’s Town Hall ensures citizens are able to track every regulation.
- Each state should provide web portals with checkbooks with detailed records for all state spending like Ohio does for state and local spending.
- For more resources on our Classroom Funding Transparency reform, visit ciceroinstitute.org/issues/education-workforce/classroom-funding-transparency/.
DOGE Toolkit:
Technology
Download:
Virginia Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order 30 (AI & Regulatory Modernization)
Proof of Concept
Virginia
- $1.2 Billion in Annual Savings: By streamlining rules in housing, licensing, and beyond, Virginia spurred job creation and cut costs for residents.
- Faster, Cheaper Housing: Cutting red tape reduced construction costs by $24,000 per new home.
- 85 percent Drop in Professional Licensing Wait Times: Reducing wait times helps citizens enter the workforce sooner.
- Robust Protections Remain: Health, safety, and welfare standards are maintained, but the system is now more responsive and transparent.
- Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Idaho
- Nation’s First “Zero-Based Regulation” Program: Regulations sunset every five years unless agencies can justify their necessity.
- 20% Regulatory Reduction in One Year: In 2019, Idaho eliminated over 1,800 pages of outdated rules.
- Least-Regulated State: According to the Mercatus Center, Idaho leads in cutting regulatory burdens.
- Systematic Review Process: Regulations must pass cost-benefit analyses and be benchmarked against less restrictive states.
- Idaho Division of Financial Management
- Manhattan Institute review of Idaho’s zero-based regulatory approach
Iowa
- Legislative Oversight via the Administrative Rules Review Committee (ARRC): The committee actively scrutinizes rules for necessity and efficiency.
- Public-Driven Rulemaking: Executive Order 10 mandates agencies review and re-promulgate regulations with justification.
- Simplified Transportation Regulations: Overhauled county and city bridge construction fund regulations to remove redundancy and increase transparency.
- Regulatory Rescissions and Repromulgation: Encourages sunsetting of unnecessary rules while maintaining essential safeguards.
- Example of Iowa Rulemaking Document
Missouri
- 19,079 Restrictions Eliminated (19% Reduction): Executive Order 17-03 led to the “NoMORedTape” initiative, cutting excessive rules.
- Regulatory Sandbox Established (2024): Senate Bill 894 allows businesses with innovative products to bypass outdated regulations.
- Red Tape Relief Advisory Council (2021): Created to ensure ongoing review and reduction of unnecessary regulations.
- Focus on Business and Licensing Reform: Streamlined licensing requirements and compliance processes for small businesses.
- The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review article about Missouri’s approach
Ohio
- 30% Reduction in Regulations: Senate Bill 9 mandated a 30% regulatory reduction target, overseen by the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR).
- Public Engagement Through CutRedTape.Ohio.gov: A dedicated website allowing citizens to identify and suggest rule reductions.
- AI-Powered Regulatory Review: “Reg Explorer” AI tool scanned centuries of regulations, flagging outdated and redundant rules.
- Projected $44 Million Savings by 2033: The initiative is expected to reduce compliance costs and government waste.
- Foundation for American Innovation review of Ohio’s Reg Explorer AI tool
- CutRedTape website announcement
Montana
- Red Tape Relief Initiative (2021): Executive Order 17-2021 expanded public input on regulatory reduction.
- Citizen-Driven Reform: Public can submit unnecessary regulation complaints through the “Red Tape Relief Form.”
- Targeted Industry Reform: Focus on occupational licensing, business compliance, and health and safety codes to streamline operations.
- Ongoing Review Mechanism: Agencies required to evaluate and justify existing regulations on a recurring basis.
Confronting Regulatory Inertia Nationwide
Across the country, unreviewed and outdated regulations accumulate, diverting resources from genuine public needs. The Cicero Institute’s report, Confronting Regulatory Inertia: State and Federal Lawmakers Must Implement Robust and Mandatory Regulatory Review to Improve Market Health and Human Outcomes, found that:
- Annual compliance costs run into trillions of dollars, hindering wages and spurring poverty.
- Regular, transparent, and mandatory review processes—especially sunset provisions—are essential to sustain deregulation efforts across administrations.
- Automatic rule expiration, comprehensive cost-benefit analyses, and robust public participation are the keys to maintaining an effective, citizen-focused regulatory code.
Ready to Launch Your State DOGE?
By adopting the principles above—legal legitimacy, procedural integrity, rigorous cost-benefit checks, justifying state spending, and merit-based governance—your administration can drive a new era of efficient, citizen-centric regulation.
For more information, policy templates, or tailored advice, reach out to the Cicero Institute. Let’s work together to craft a government that truly serves the people—cost-effectively, transparently, and innovatively.
CONTACT US
Email: [email protected] | Phone: (512) 815-2028
Address: 2112 Rio Grande Street, Austin, Texas 78705
Empower your state’s future. Create a DOGE that unlocks innovation, invests in citizens, and honors the public trust

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