Short of sitting down with an entire copy of a state budget (say, Illinois’ in my case), is there a way to know exactly what a state does provide? We keep discussing cutting “fat,” but how do we know what and where the fat is? I’m sure there are programs that benefit ten or twelve people, but no one knows about these things. Our state is becoming the laughing stock because of our gross incompetence and corruption (Thanks, Blago - and predecessors), and all we hear is that we have to cut the waste in the budget. Is there a way to get a simplified picture of a state’s expenditures?
Fat isn’t necessarily “A” program but parts of programs.
For instance in Illinois giving free rides on public transit to seniors. Now I’m all for this, well almost. A senior who makes over a certain amount of money, should pay. I don’t know what that amount is but it should be something.
Or in Illinois, kids under 18 are covered by the state for health and dental. This is fine, but as one candidate for governor pointed out, a person making over $50,000 a year should be able to buy health insurance for his kid.
And it’s not so much a matter of any single program but rather people who can afford to pay for it and getting it for free.
Fair enough. And I agree. (And I’m a senior who doesn’t deserve the free ride and will be willing to give it up when they get around to doing it) But is there a repository of basic expenses and programs (with their descriptions) that a citizen could consult to help make some choices?
One place to start is the state’s annual financial statements (CAFR=Comprehensive Annual Financial Report). Illinois is here.
States aren’t the only ones to publish a CAFR every year. Counties, cities and even some public services (water and power districts, for example) put out their own reports.
Some portions of a CAFR require some accounting background to understand, both other parts can be quite readable. Readability can vary from one report to the next; many government entities include a lot of user-friendly information that isn’t strictly required by the GASB.
You can start with the assumption that schools, prisons, and Medicaid are the big wedges. I’ve tried to find you a nice chart, but apparently no one ever makes “prisons” or “corrections” a listed item; I’m actually pretty puzzled where the prison budget is hiding. I’ve also tried to find a specific cost for AllKids, the insurance program Markxxx mentioned. That’s also hard–I did learn that the premiums and copays for that program are fairly income indexed, going as high as $300 a month a child with unlimited copays. That starts to sound close to straight insurance, rather than a pure government benefit, although I’m sure at that level it gets only the sickest kids.
I thought I’d do much better at finding something like the NYTimes’ gorgeous graphic of the US budget:
“Fat” are any expenses that do not affect you. If they do affect you, the cuts are to a vital program that must be protected.
Short of reading the budget line by line, no, I don’t think there is, except for good journalism. That’s precisely why we elect representatives of ourselves to learn the nitty gritty and make decisions for us.
The mediator is journalism, which at its best understands the nuances, and asks the questions of our elected representatives that we would ask them, and then do their best to explain their answers to us.
Nonetheless, it take thought first, and then some work to find journalists you trust to filter the politicians rhetoric.
Like anything else, to be a good citizen there isn’t a free lunch.
Not only is it hard to pick out the “bad” programs, not everything is funded from some big magic account. The free ride for seniors, for example, is funded by a real estate transfer tax. Just because I bought a condo, I’m funding it. I wouldn’t even mind if it were paid from a sales or income tax that everyone shared (and the new means-testing rules are active), but what’s buying property have to do with it? Besides being an easy target… Of course, now I want it to stay the same, since I already paid my share.
Here’s a nice, clean pie chart of the 2008-2009 California state budget. The big chunks are k-12 education (39%), higher education (12%), health and human services (29%), and corrections and rehabilitation (10%.)
So education was 51% of California’s state budget. In the proposed 2010 Missouri state budget, education will account for about 58%.
I am not sure whether or not that is intended sarcastically, but I think it is quite right. “Fat,” in this context, is just a term of political bullshit. That is not to say that there are not avoidable inefficiencies in state programs, as there are in anything, but you are not going to be able to find them in a nice neat easy to read summary. They will only be found by going over fine operational details with painstaking attention. Beyond that, you will be making cuts that are going to hurt someone badly. If you stigmatize it as “fat” you have a better chance of persuading those who actually are not much hurt by it to let you get away with it.
Don’t forget that local governments are creatures of the state governments, with only such powers and duties as the state delegates. Depending on the state, many of the services rendered may be town/city-, county-, or state-supplied and/or funded. (e.g., in 46 states the services of the sheriff’s department are a county function, but in Alaska and Connecticut they are provided by state and local police, while in Hawaii and Rhode Island, sheriffs are state officials. In some states, like New York and Hawaii, issuance of driver’s licenses and vehicle registration plates/tags is the duty of the county clerk or other county official; in others, such as North Carolina, it’s done by offices of the State DMV.
Welfare/social services, a large proportion of state/local costs, is administered at state or at county level, and occasionally at city/town level, depending on the state.
Agreed.
Similarly, a lot of “fat” is archaic business practices which are expensive to operate. Like employing a room full of clerks moving papers instead of computers and self-service websites.
But, to cut that “fat”, you’ve got to spec, put out to bid, buy, install, and maintain the computers and custom software. And hire & pay the more highly-skilled, but fewer, folks needed to to operate them. And you need to fund all this while still running the room full of slow-moving fat ladies to do whatever it is until the new system is up and running.
So you’ve got to increase outlays in the short term (say 2 years), to achieve savings in the long term, say break even in 4 years. Break-even in 4 years is a 25% ROI. Not bad, but when the mantra is “Cut costs today!” and there is zero money for additional capital outlay, it just can’t happen.
You often can’t get from *here *to a *there *even though we all agree that the *there *would be a better place.
In business this is solved by the archaic company going bankrupt and somebody new & efficient taking their spot in the marketplace. Very rarely do old stodgy businesses sucessfully upgrade themselves through internal efforts. Just too to hard; just too expensive.
In gov’t we don’t have that option. What’s needed is the kind of long-term thinking which business can’t afford. Knee-jerk actions from politicians with an eye on an election in the next 36-ish months at most doesn’t mesh well with long-term planning. And that’s before you throw partisanship, incompetance and corruption into the mix. In all, not a recipe for success.
Plus, the room full of fat ladies are usually campaign workers, union members and voters. There is no upside for a pol to “eliminate jobs.” Remember, one man’s “efficiency” is another man’s “unemployment.”