B&G, Author at Barrett and Greene, Inc.

Utah improves forecast disclosures: Thanks, in part, to Volcker Alliance

April 18, 2018 by B&G Leave a Comment

Utah has voted to disclose a long-term forecast for revenues and expenditures. And boy, does that make us happy.

Over the course of years, we’ve been involved in a great many projects that evaluated states, counties or cities in terms of their success in a variety of management or policy areas. The frustration of these exercises, frequently, is that it’s difficult to see the payoff from the recommendations we make. That doesn’t mean we haven’t influenced governmental actions on a number of occasions. It’s just that it’s frequently difficult to prove the cause and effect.

We bring this up as a means of telling you about a happy event, involving a new long-term forecast for revenues and expenditures, that followed the Volcker Alliance’s release of Budget Report Cards for Utah and forty-nine other states earlier this year as well as the study Truth and Integrity in State Budgeting: What is the Reality? published in November 2017: Utah legislators took heed of the Volcker Alliance’s recommendations and are beginning to issue a long-term forecast for its expenditures and revenues. As senior project consultants for the Volcker Alliance, we were deeply involved — along with a diligent crew of Volcker employees and contractors as well as a number of universities — in this effort and we wanted to brag a bit.

The easiest way to do that, as you’ll see, is to excerpt from the press release issued by the Volcker Alliance a few days back:

“The House and Senate of the State of Utah unanimously passed House Bill 452 to institute multiyear [forecast] estimates for state revenues and expenses as advocated by the Volcker Alliance. . . “The new Utah law, titled Legislative Fiscal Analyst Amendments, requires the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst to evaluate current and long-term trends relating to taxes and federal fund receipts and requires the initiation of a three-year cycle of analysis on revenue volatility and other budget matters.

“William Glasgall (pictured here), senior vice president and director of the Volcker Alliance’s state and local initiatives, said, ‘in fiscal 2015 through 2017, only nine states received average A grades for their budget forecasting procedures in our study. The Utah legislation addresses some of the areas in which Utah could improve its budget practices. It is gratifying to see the positive changes Utah has introduced and we look forward to assisting other states to introduce similar improvements. Our goal is to provide tailored insights and tools to help elected officials, investors, policy advocates, and citizens determine and improve their state’s fiscal governance and sustainability . . ‘

“In floor speeches House Majority Leader Brad R. Wilson and Senator Kevin T. Van Tassell both credited the Volcker Alliance with providing the impetus for the bill.

In his remarks, Senator Van Tassell referred to the Alliance’s grades for Utah’s budget practices and said ‘One of the areas where Volcker Alliance . . . said Utah could improve [is] longer term budgeting. This bill addresses that goal and strengthens our tradition of planning for the worst and hoping for the best.’

When a high school graduate doesn’t have credentials for his or her state college

April 11, 2018 by B&G Leave a Comment

A high school graduate may cradle a diploma. But that might not be nearly enough to get into a state university.

“High school graduation rates have soared across the country over the last decade, accompanied by the cheers of educators and lawmakers alike,” reports the Center for American Progress in a recent report. “But in the vast majority of states, simply attaining a high school diploma does not qualify [a graduate] to attend a public university.”

The gist of the report is this: Every state has different requirements for coursework in subjects like math or science, in order to get a diploma. Some vary in that they look for demonstrations of “mastery” rather than specific classes.

There’s nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. But public universities in the states have their own criteria for classwork to qualify for admission, and they are often not aligned with the requirements for a high school diploma. This means that the universities don’t believe that high school diplomas require an education with sufficient rigor to deserve a place in their incoming classes. And that just doesn’t make sense.

Co-author of the report, Laura Jiminez says, “Within a state, it should be clear — and it should be aligned — that if I go to a public high school system, I should be eligible for a public university system in my state . . . There really just isn’t agreement within the states about what it means to be college- and career-ready, and that’s why we’re seeing these different sets of policies.”

One of the biggest shortcomings is that nearly half the states don’t require the kind of foreign language education that the state schools look for.

One powerful example, according to the report: “In California, home to perhaps the best-regarded public university system in the world, entry requirements for math, English, foreign languages, and art at University of California and California State schools all exceed completion requirements at California public high schools.”

Balanced budgets and consensus estimating

April 9, 2018 by B&G Leave a Comment

“Illinois hasn’t had truly balanced budgets for more than 15 years,” reports Illinois Policy, an independent organization generating public policy solutions aimed at promoting personal freedom and prosperity in Illinois, “And state spending has far outpaced growth in residents’ incomes. These are two reasons why Illinois is in desperate need of a spending cap that ensures residents are getting a state government they can afford.
But there’s another key reason Illinoisans need a spending cap: lawmakers can’t reliably figure out how much money they have to spend each year, with state officials consistently producing revenue projections that don’t match one another or the actual amount of revenue the state ends up generating.”

It’s that last line that really alarms us. Illinois can blame its fiscal mess — including the nation’s lowest bond rating — on all sorts of things; many of them dating back for years, like its failure to adequately fund state pension plans. But the first step, as far as we’re concerned, to putting together any kind of budget that can be both politically palatable and fiscally sound, is to start with the right revenue estimates.

And that’s next to impossible, thanks to state law! According to the Illinois Policy Report, “The executive estimate comes from the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget, or GOMB, and is used by the governor in his annual budget proposal. A second estimate comes from the legislative Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or COGFA. Unfortunately, these two estimates rarely match either each other or the amount of revenue that actually ends up coming in.”

The alternative, of course, is consensus revenue estimating. As we wrote for the Volcker Alliance a couple of years back, “Consensus revenue forecasts are made by a group of contributors, often involving the legislature, executive branch, economists, and representatives of the Democratic and Republican parties. The point of a consensus forecast is to make it easier for policymakers to concentrate on expenditures instead of arguing about whether the revenue estimate was politically driven. While consensus revenue forecasts are not necessarily more accurate than ones produced by a governor’s budget office, the process is likely to go more smoothly when all the parties involved in forming a budget agree on a single revenue figure.”

And not to belabor the obvious, that’s exactly what Illinois needs in order to come up with balanced budgets: a process that goes more smoothly.

“Constitutionally repugnant” government secrets: non-disclosures and confidential settlements

April 6, 2018 by B&G Leave a Comment

When it was discovered that many of Donald Trump’s top advisers were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), forcing them to keep quiet about what happens in the White House, an outcry ensued. As a Washington Post editor wrote, these agreements are “not just oppressive, but constitutionally repugnant.”

But it’s not just the federal government trying to keep employees mouths sewed shut, either through “confidential agreements” or “non-disclosure contracts,” according to a column by Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene that was released on governing.com on April 5.

Following is a summary of the piece, with sections drawn directly from the Governing column. It’s been 24 years since 1984 as Orwell predicted it. But this kind of thing sounds like it was torn out of the pages of his book.

Montana, for example, has had a reported escalation of confidential settements between employees and the state, according to the Governing article, which also related that, “in Philadelphia, reports of sexual harassment — and a subsequent settlement for one employee –led to calls for Sheriff Jewell Williams to resign and for the city to reconsider how NDAs and settlements are applied in cases of sexual harassment.”

The issue is particularly problematic for potential whistleblowers.

“At the federal level,” the column stated, “a whistleblower’s ability to report wrongdoing is strongly protected, but state laws tend to be weaker, vary dramatically and may not be known to employees, says Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, an organization dedicated to protecting whistleblowers.

“He worries that any kind of agreement that curtails public employees’ free speech could deter them from flagging problems.

“He worries that ‘There are administrative and legal remedies that would allow employees to break nondisclosure agreements or speak out or blow the whistle despite a confidential settlement,’ he says. ‘But the mere existence of the agreement is highly chilling.’”

Take a look at the full article. This is important stuff.

Shared Services: A voice from reality-land

February 14, 2018 by B&G Leave a Comment

Back in early January, we wrote a column for Governing magazine about “shared services,” titled “Why are Governments So Hesitant to Share Services.” Soon after its release, we got a very insightful note from one of our regular correspondents, Jay Gsell, county manager of Genesee County, New York. A native of New Jersey, Jay has been a local government professional since 1975 in seven different localities. He’s married. And enjoys the music of Carlos Santana.

We thought we’d share his comments with you, and here they are:

With regard to Shared Services and the seeming reluctance to fully embrace the realities of 21st Century local government service delivery, maybe we need to start with the underlying principle: “That which doesn’t kill us, serves to make us stronger.”

Among the challenges that come into play, as we dip our toes into the “shared services” pond, are: protectionism, job security, fear of lost control, 19th Century notions of governance and often the presumption that the level of government closest to the taxpayer is the most responsive to taxpayers.

Here in New York State, you would think that our 1,700 local public sector taxing entities would be falling over themselves to be more cost efficient and effective and do the state’s shared services bidding. What has become more apparent is that for years shared services and consolidation have occurred and have been providing fiscal and service benefits, but the real big ticket items or more politically complicated/nuanced efforts are the hardest to get our collective hearts and minds around and take a stab at.

So what will it take to move further? We’ve had success stories in Genesee County, New York including joint health departments, youth bureaus, fuel farms, highway construction equipment sharing and so on. In New York State, and I suspect elsewhere, there’s hope for county-wide school districts, regional county jails (as is the case in North Carolina and Virginia) and more. When do we get gumption to go to the next level of these initiatives?

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