Close look at state department budgets needed

With the state, cities, towns and counties look at a tight budget for at least one more year, it is time for the local and state governments to look at changes that can be made to help weather boom and bust cycles in the future.

State Rep. Lorraine Quarberg (R-Thermopolis) has a great plan to help the state. During a town hall meeting last Wednesday in Basin, Quarberg said she plans on introducing legislation for a ‘zero balance’ budget for each state agency and department. Under the plan, Quarberg said three to five agencies each year would build their budgets from scratch. This would occur every seven years, giving the Joint Appropriations Committee and legislators a chance to take a more in depth look at each agency’s budget.

It’s a novel concept and while it will take time it’s something that should be done and should have been done for years. The problem, as Quarberg outlined last week, is that new programs, projects, employees are added to agencies, bringing their baseline budget up each year. The Legislature never examines the baseline budget, only looks at and decides on any increases.

Quarberg said examining the budget from the ground up will give legislators a chance to see what is working and what is not. It will provide a chance to cut budgets and eliminate programs that have become obsolete or are not working, or even to suggest changes to make programs better.

We hope the legislators will embrace the idea and move the bill (yet to be filed) through the budget session this year.

Legislators never look seem to look back on the decisions that they make, budget or otherwise. This is an opportunity for them to do that. Quarberg said every decision made during a legislative session affects someone’s life, but most of the time legislators don’t look back to see if the decisions they have made are helping or hurting their constituents.

Having departments look at the budgets from the ground up, legislators will be able to see how much programs are costing the state, what services are they providing, what the impact of the services and programs are to the citizens.

Except for additional time that will be required of the JAC, and the departments in developing their budgets and in essence justifying their budgets, there is no downside to this proposal. And it will be time well spent for everyone.

Quarberg said she also wants to be cautious about accepting federal money for new programs. Again a novel idea that should be in practice by all legislators.

Earlier this year the District No. 4 board said no to the COPS grant and a school resource officer and it was the right choice. While federal grant money pays for the program and a new employee for three years, the district must come up with the funding in year four. Who knows what will happen four years from now.

If it is an employee that is necessary, if it’s a program that is necessary, departments, school boards and councils, should find the money in the general operating budget, because once the grant funding is gone, they’ll have to cut the program or use general fund money anyway.

If it’s important, it should be important enough to budget from general fund money.

We support using grant funding for one-time expenditures. We look at the consensus block grant funds used this year in the county and it has been used for capital improvement projects, expanding the Lovell Library, building a new restroom at Washington Park (still in the planning stages), building an addition to the Basin Fire Hall, infrastructure in Manderson, Basin and many other communities.

These are items that will actually save agencies money on maintenance in the long run. It’s good planning and wise use of funding that is uncertain of being there, one, two, five or 10 years down the road.

We encourage the Legislature to say no to new programs this year, no matter where the funding comes from, but especially using federal funds. President Obama has said there will be a freeze on funding next year so what happens to those grant funded programs. The future is uncertain and this is not the time to start programs with uncertain funding.

In a time of lessening revenues, starting new programs is not good business. Rather let’s wait, give Quarberg’s idea a chance and look at old programs and how they are working before adding anything new to any agency.

---Karla Pomeroy