Jeff Hoover has a simple question for Gov. Steve Beshear: just how many people work for state government?

But he’s found it’s not such a simple answer.

Hoover, the Republican Minority Floor Leader in the state House from Jamestown is sponsor of House Bill 387 which sailed through the Senate Committee on State and Local Government Wednesday and is likely to pass the full Senate easily. The bill has already passed the House and would require the executive branch to report the number of merit and non-merit employees as well as all contracted services each quarter.

Hoover filed House Bill 387 after lawmakers sought the information as it tried to balance a budget with a $1.3 billion revenue shortfall.

“Surprisingly we discovered there was no central depository of that information,” Hoover told the committee.”

Republican Senators on the committee praised the bill, portending easy passage by the full chamber.

“I guess it took a (financial) crisis for us to realize a lot of this needs to be looked at,” said Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon.

Hoover said the Pers-onnel Cabinet has little difficulty providing the number of classified or merit and unclassified or non-merit employees but can’t provide precise data for its personal service contracts – contracting outside government for services.

“The truth of the matter is that I don’t think they know some of those numbers,” Hoover said.

Crystal Pryor, spokeswoman for the Personnel Cabinet, said part of the reason is that different cabinets handle state employment and contracted services.

“The Personnel Cabinet oversees the employment and administration of classified and unclassified employees and is able to provide the numbers of those employees in the executive branch,” she said. “Contracts and the procurement of state contracts are governed by the Finance and Administration Cabinet.”

The House has already passed its version of the state budget and it requires Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration to reduce the level of non-merit employees and personal service contracts to the levels of December 2007, estimating savings of $5 million a year. As they crafted the budget, House members clashed with the administration over the number of political (non-merit) appointees.

Hoover on Wednesday said his bill will provide the legislature with “a base number (of employees and contract costs) to compare if there is a sudden spike” in either.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.