AUSTIN (Nexstar) On Wednesday, the Texas House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency (Texas DOGE) met for the first time. In a meeting lasting more than 12 hours, the group of 13 lawmakers — consisting of eight Republicans and five Democrats — discussed how they plan to eliminate waste, fraud and corruption within the Texas government.

“At times we will use a scalpel, carefully dissecting inefficiencies to make government work smarter. At other times we will wield a sledgehammer, going after fraud and corruption that may have gone unchallenged,” Committee Chair Giovanni Capriglione, R – Southlake, said to kick off the hearing. “Make no mistake, change is coming and it will be quick and decisive.”

‘It’s something we need to keep our eye on the ball about’

Some state employees have expressed concerns after the U.S. government’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (federal DOGE), has led to a large number of layoffs and resignations for federal employees.

“[Texas State University employees have] a lot of concern, a lot of fear,” Rolf Straubhaar, an instructor at Texas State University, said. “People who have the mobility to do so—I have a lot of colleagues that are moving out of state.”

Straubhaar, a member of the Texas State Employees Union, said a lot of the hesitation about Texas DOGE comes from the reputation quickly earned by the federal DOGE.

“It’s been a historical trend that words like ‘efficiency’ are often used to try and push a particular political agenda. Particularly to try to downsize things or to outsource things to the private sector that are typically done by the public sector,” Straubhaar said. “It’s something we need to keep our eye on the ball about to make sure that this doesn’t become the committee where we send things that want to get fast-tracked, that we want to keep hush-hush until they actually happen.”

Not your Elon’s DOGE

The federal DOGE is an agency working in the executive branch of the U.S. government, often accused of subverting the legislative branch altogether.

“There’s all the checks and balances process to make sure that thing that should stay, that are supported by the majority of the people, stay and things that might need to change can change,” Straubhaar said. “The whole idea of DOGE is to get around that.”

Unlike federal DOGE, the Texas DOGE is a legislative committee, solely consisting of elected House of Representatives members. Additionally, any legislation they deal with eventually has to go before the full House and Senate.

“[In federal DOGE] it does look like some layoffs and cuts,” DOGE Committee member Rhetta Bowers, D – Garland, said. “I am hoping it doesn’t go to that level.”

Capriglione was more reserved about the potential for mass layoffs.

“Everybody that’s listening to this broadcast right now has to justify what they’re doing every single day,” he said, alluding to Federal DOGE’s request for every federal employee to send them an email detailing what they did that week. “The goal of this is to make sure the government is working for the taxpayers and not the other way around—in whatever form that is. Maybe there’s software tools that we can use to help those workers, maybe its ‘they need to be doing something else.'”

What will Texas DOGE do?

On Wednesday, Texas DOGE just conducted interviews with agency leaders, not taking up legislation. But the Texas House has already referred 18 bills their way, many dealing with state employee regulations and state government operations. Some of the bills are as simple as giving working mothers time off to pump breast milk, some as complicated as making every state agency regulation gets approved by an elected official.