"Starving the beast” is
a popular conservative approach to governance.
“If they (legislators)
don’t have the money, they can’t spend it,” one Republican operative explained,
strongly endorsing this approach.
True enough, but as
another longtime Mississippi leader told me, “‘Starve the beast’ is not a smart
way to govern, in fact, it isn’t governing at all.”
Also true.
Supposedly, Republicans
in charge of state government are seriously pursuing a smart way to govern. No,
not the "working groups" announced by legislative leaders last
week.
The long awaited
performance-based budgeting and management system, first announced by the
Legislature in 1994, would identify wasteful and ineffective programs whose
funding could be re-allocated to programs that evidence says work. In other
words, it would allow legislators to make smart, evidence-based budget
decisions.
Three and a half years
ago, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn created a
partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts and the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation to develop an analytical system to support
performance-based budgeting. The Legislature’s PEER Committee was assigned
tasks to develop a state strategic plan, a comprehensive inventory of programs
and costs, and performance measures and targets. The PEER Committee was to
gather data to assess program performance. The Pew-MacArthur model was to calculate
cost-benefit ratios for assessed programs.
Last year, the PEER
Committee produced a comprehensive guide to ’splain performance-based budgeting
to legislators. It included interesting results from a pilot application of the
new model.
Unfortunately, it also
showed this smarter budgeting approach remains many years away from
fruition. That leaves us with "starve the beast.”
The problem with this
approach is that it starves important and essential programs.
Thus, deferred repairs
to roads and bridges will continue to reach crisis status while hundreds of
millions of dollars go for non-urgent building projects and tax cuts. The
Department of Health will eliminate clinics and maternity services and the
Department of Mental Health psychiatric beds and addiction units while less
important and non-essential programs continue to operate. And so on.
Quite frankly, the first
thing that needs to become functional is the legislature’s basic budget
process. Turned murky and complicated by the horribly misnamed “Budget
Transparency and Simplification Act,” the budget process this past session
featured pretend appropriations bills that were rammed through by leadership to
get the bills past deadlines and into six-man conference committees. Leadership
then allowed these committees to meet in secret, contrary to the rules. To cap
it off, the committee-approved bills with real numbers were not given to
members until the last minute, providing them with little opportunity for
review or rebuttal.
Not a smart way to
govern. Nor is starving the beast.
It’s possible the Legislature’s
new working groups could turn things around. But, in Mississippi, politics
trumps smart nearly every time.
Crawford is a syndicated
columnist from Meridian (crawfolk@gmail.com)
10 comments:
Ms. does not have a budget problem. How could it possibly have a problem? We have so much excess money the governor is willing to spend thousands of $ defending BS laws he has pushed through that has no chance of becoming law.
Maybe"The Beast" needs to pull it's own weight for once in "it's" life!! I'm done reading "The Beast"!!
If they "starve the beast" they can't as easily enrich themselves and their friends and donors.
Amazing that the State (Exexutive Branch) cannot force agency heads under its control to streamline overhead. Why does every State agency need public information staffs, asst. directors, deputy directors, Chiefs of staff, personnel staffs, IT staffs, purchasing staffs and the many many dollars spent on travel to far flung distinctions. Simple answer is that's how it's always been done. The State Personnel Board does a poor job of conducting work/time measurement evaluations when assessing the need for agency positions. It's all political.
if we could just get away from the model that always has cash for some boon-doggie half ass scheme but no money for the basic functions of government...but we will have one kick-ass aquarium.
If you think the Personnel Board has any say in how positions are handed out, you are sorely mistaken.
Anonymous has a great point...what DOES the Personnel Board do? Seems like they are always willing to tell you what they won't do but it's not very clear about what they will do
It is beginning to sound like no one has any say in how positions are filled. If you are a politician you need more people on the parole to get you re elected. That and all your kin and friends needs a job that pays well and does not involve working.
The Mississippi State Personnel Board is an antiquated model for modern government. It does not need to exist, or should be drastically reduced is size and scope. One problem MS Agencies have is the inability to rid themselves of bad employees after they have been on the job for a year. Employment with the state should be 'at will' just like the private sector.
Looks like the Ms. State Personnel Board would be a very good place to start cutting out the waste. If they do not know what their job is or do not do their job, they are a prime example of waste.
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