Gov. Jan Brewer and agency officials are trying to come up with new ways to do state business with less money and less staff. The goal: help taxpayers cut through red tape and save everyone time and money.

Thursday, Brewer signed an executive order establishing the Government Transformation Office as part of the state's ongoing efforts to improve sometimes-antiquated operations.

In her January state of the state speech, Brewer vowed to create the office.

The office will be housed at the state Department of Administration, and transformation staff will help officials from agencies, boards and commissions identify areas they can improve. Staff will also train supervisors to manage their employees in ways that will cut waste and improve innovation.

A Government Transformation Committee made up of state officials and members of the private sector will oversee the transformation office.

"Governor Brewer is committed to streamlining government and reducing red tape," Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said. "The Government Transformation Office will help make certain that taxpayer dollars are used as efficiently as possible."

Brewer hopes the office can replicate cost-saving efforts like those under way at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Faced with shrinking budgets and dwindling staff, agency officials in October 2011 embarked on a plan to become more efficient.

In April, they developed a plan to issue certain air-quality permits within a day instead of taking 60 days. The agency tested its new process out on a major mining company and intends to soon roll it out agencywide. Officials believe they can trim permitting times by 30 percent, making the process less cumbersome for businesses.

ADEQ looked for other ways to improve, too. After brainstorming with front-line employees, they found it took too long to hire consultants to perform cleanup work for leaking underground storage tanks. Officials reduced the amount of time to hire those consultants by more than half -- to 40 days on average from 90.

Across the environmental agency, officials are working on about two dozen projects aimed at improving the way they do business.

Henry Darwin, director of ADEQ, and Misael Cabrera, an ADEQ deputy director, said they hope to build on talent and ideas from front-line employees to change the agency's culture.

"This is about doing our job quicker and doing more environmental good with our limited resources," Darwin said. "It's amazing to me that in the end, we will be able to do more than what we had done when we were fully staffed, and that's the whole purpose of this process for us."

Reach the reporter at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4712.