Under the plan, all HR functions would be overseen by the state personnel office. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has ordered state agencies to start consolidating their information technology and human resource departments, PennLive reports. And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed that each county come up with tax saving measures that could include sharing government offices, such as HR, the AP reports.

While New Mexico’s state personnel office does run HR for smaller agencies, larger departments now have their own HR teams. The department of health’s HR office has 52 employees for a total staff of 3,000.

“The key goal is to increase access to human resource services, while at the same time saving taxpayer dollars,” says Joseph Cueto, a spokesman for the personnel office. “A streamlined and centralized model will help us do just that.”

The idea for consolidation is appealing to New Mexico legislators as the state faces a budget deficit. Another concern is how long it takes for the state to make hires--an average of 65 days from the time a job is posted, a recent analysis by the legislative finance committee found.

A member of that committee, Sen. Carlos Cisneros (D-Questa), called the state’s hiring system “grossly inefficient.” Cisneros said moving all HR under the state personnel office so hiring is handled in one place instead of by numerous agencies could speed up the hiring process.

“We lose the better-qualified individuals because of the time line,” Cisneros said. “This should have been done a long time ago.” While some union officials said consolidation could be good, they also have concerns, noting that several state agencies now have too few HR staff.

Donald Alire, president of the Communications Workers of America, Local 7076, said removing HR from individual agencies could hamper employees in those agencies from getting their concerns addressed quickly. Alire also notes that having HR housed in one place could give the governor’s office greater control over personnel issues.

“If it’s under one shop, it’s going to be under one direction,” Alire said. “It could be good, it could be bad. If we get a governor who respects unions, we could benefit.”

Pennsylvania’s Gov. Wolf told his state’s agencies to have staff handling IT and HR duties to shift to a shared model this year, according to a memo to Cabinet secretaries that PennLive obtained.

"As you are aware, the commonwealth is facing a revenue shortfall in excess of $600 million for the current fiscal year, as well as a much greater structural deficit for 2017-18 fiscal year," that memo states. "We have already taken steps to control costs in response to these budgetary issues but we must do more."

Wolf’s press secretary, J.J. Abbott, could not say whether the changes would result in layoffs. He added their goal is to find a way for all employees that could be impacted to still work. There are 1,989 IT and 1,020 HR employees.