Nine months later, Utah's freshman governor has implemented many of the policy and personnel shifts recommended by his 100-member transition team. He has unceremoniously dumped other suggestions - including ideas Huntsman himself suggested.

"You get a lot of recommendations. You dismiss some, you embrace others," he says.

The Salt Lake Tribune first requested a copy of Huntsman's transition reports in April. His office fought it through several rounds of open-records appeals until this week, when, against the advice of his attorneys, the governor decided to release the 2-inch binder to the news media.

"This document was generated by private citizens before I was in office. I think it serves a public interest," he said. "[Releasing it] was the right thing to do. That was the only decision I could make."

The reports compiled in December by a transition team led by former Sen. Jake Garn, Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller and former IHC Vice President Pamela Atkinson reveal ambitious plans for reshaping a government team and philosophy that had settled in over 12 years. While Huntsman has backed off on some of the recommendations, he plunged in almost immediately to implement others.

After just a few days in office, he fired more than 30 economic development executives and transferred tourism promotion into his office. The bloodletting was attributed to a recommendation from the transition team. He created a public lands office within the Department of Natural Resources, with former San Juan County Commissioner Lynn Stevens in charge. And he appointed former Lt. Gov. Gayle McKeachnie as the executive director of the new rural affairs office.

During the 2005 Legislature, bills passed to affirm the economic development overhaul and clear the way for consolidating information technology workers into one new division. Legislators also set aside $140,000 to study moving the prison - an idea Huntsman pushed during the 2004 campaign and his transition team endorsed. And lawmakers disbanded the Utah Energy Office at the governor's urging, another transition team suggestion.

But some ideas have languished. Transition team members prodded the new governor to take a lead in tax reform discussions - something he has shied away from so far, although Tax Reform Task Force Chairman Curt Bramble said Huntsman's staff is expected today to lay out options for reform.

Members of a transition team charged with reviewing the Department of Corrections urged the new governor to back the Drug Offender Reform Act. In the wake of the governor's passive support, lawmakers would only approve a pilot program for shifting emphasis from punishment to treatment.

Some suggestions Huntsman has rejected outright. Natural Resources auditors proposed splicing the Division of Wildlife Resources into the Department of Agriculture - an idea Huntsman says "will not see the light of day." The report proposed bolstering the urban representation on the state Transportation Commission. Huntsman has abandoned that recommendation as well. And plans are dead to combine the state departments of Human Services and Health, as well as Public Safety and Corrections.

Huntsman calls the document a "personnel initiative" and certain state employees fared better than others. The report is an indictment of a few members of former Gov. Olene Walker and former Gov. Mike Leavitt's Cabinets.

While most of Walker's Cabinet members told the Huntsman team they wanted to stay on, he replaced all but a handful.

Former Administrative Services Department Director Camille Anthony was singled out for particular censure. The transition team flayed Anthony as an "empire builder," loyal to Walker, but out of touch with her employees. The team leader who helped write the review, D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli, was appointed to take her place.

While slightly uncomfortable with her evaluation being made public, Anthony says she's moved on. "It's nine months old," she said.

The governor apparently downplayed the recommendations about the Public Safety and Corrections department heads. Public Safety committee members urged Huntsman to require Commissioner Robert Flowers, a former St. George police chief, to live along the Wasatch Front. Wednesday, the governor said he didn't make such a move a requirement of the job. Public Safety spokesman Doug McCleve said Flowers rents a Salt Lake City apartment, although his wife lives in their St. George home.

Corrections committee members recommended that Acting Director Scott Carver return to his deputy director post because of perceptions among employees that he is part of a "old boy" network contributing to low employee morale. But after receiving résumés from five candidates - including Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard - Huntsman decided to stick with Carver in the top post over state prisons.

"I had to go with my gut instincts," the governor said. "Scott came out as the top candidate. He's doing a good job."

Huntsman says it is impossible to judge the full impact of the transition recommendations because some not yet adopted will shape future initiatives.

"We're going to use some of these findings as ongoing guidance."