What we want our government to do and how we pay for it.

Dear Hecate

Please explain the recent announcements from the Governor's office about their upcoming budget to be released on the 23rd. The initiatives seem pretty well thought out and reasonable to me (especially the one investing in our state parks), but in the light of a well know $ 1 billion structural imbalance, why doesn't he explain how these new initiatives are going to be paid for? It seems to me that the essential task for concerned citizens is to participate in the debate about what we want our state government to do (like advocating for cleaning up the parks) but also be able to participate in the debate about how we're going to pay for it.

Just Asking



Dear Just Asking

I'm sure you've noticed that every press story about every initiative announcement includes a quote or three from a legislative leader or a "state house observer" asking the same question. And the answer will come to everyone on the 23rd or sooner. Will these new initiatives be funded by going into the state's 2.3 billion dollar rainy day fund, or by cutting other programs somewhere else, or from his revenue proposals (gambling and corporate loophole proposals) even if they haven't passed the legislature yet? You’ll find out soon enough. Let me repeat by the way, it’s perfectly legal and appropriate for the Administration to submit an annual budget estimating income from various sources even if they haven’t passed the legislature yet. Of course such a move might really irritate everyone opposed to those revenue sources, but all they have to do is continue their fight in the legislature.

BTW your description of the essential task for concerned citizens is right, excuse me, perfect.

The Massachusetts Budget Process.....What's happening?

Dear Hecate

Our group got the list of budget analysts in the Secretary of Administration and Finance who are developing the Administration's FY 09 Budget from the Public Policy Institute's September Insider Budget Briefing. We've met with a really nice brainiac budget analyst who handles the account that funds our program in November and she told us that we were a priority for the Governor, but warned us that there was a structural budget deficit and it was unlikely we would get what we were asking for. Now we read in the paper every day that the structural deficit is at least 1 billion dollars (on a 30 billion dollar budget) and the Governor may include some revenue options (gaming and closing corporate loopholes) that haven't passed the legislature yet. I thought our state, unlike the federal government had to have a balanced budget?

Baffled in Bridgewater

Dear Baffled,

It really is pretty simple. All of those young brainiacs in the Fiscal affairs Division of the Administration and Finance (who appear younger every year to Hecate) have been burning the midnight oil for weeks doing a fact based analysis of each program and developing a so-called "maintenance" budget for every single state agency.

The Secretary of Administration and Finance adds up all the maintenance budgets and compares that sum to another list of estimated revenues from various taxes and fees submitted by another set of brainiacs and if the total of the maintenance budgets is bigger than the estimated revenues it's called a structural deficit. Now there are a couple of straight forward ways to address a structural deficit that are similar to what every family does, .......cut expenses (maybe not your program, but somebody elses), draw down various "rainey day funds" (your kids college or your retirement savings accounts), or simply plan on some additional revenue streams (a 2nd or 3rd job).

The Governor will be submitting a budget on January 23 that is based on estimated expenses and revenues. First the House and then the Senate will debate the Governor's proposals and come up with their own proposals to solve the structural deficit by either by cutting programs, going into savings or passing the Governor's suggestions for revenue generating measures like gambling, closing corporate loopholes. And yes of course they could come up with their own revenue generating measures. At any rate in the end the Governor has a constitutional obligation to sign a balanced budget.

All of this back and forth can appear to get complex and complicated with at least a dozen ways to explain the same accounting method. You might find it helpful to check out the Mass Budget and Policy Center’s Budget Monitors for straightforward – just - the - facts analysis of the Budget process.

Inside is not the dark side!!!!

Dear Hecate,

You really have to get rid of your attitude about public officials!! There are many of us working as policy analysts or managers of public programs in state and local government who used to be outside advocates representing various special interest groups. And, frankly we honestly feel we have more power to make change than we ever did when we were outside! And we don't have to put up with self rightous purists in our former organizations who are unwilling to say thank you to a public official for an important incremental policy change because they find it "unacceptable" to say thank you for less than the perfect solution. They are their own worst enemy as far as I'm concerned.

Frustrated on Ashburton St.

Dear Frustrated,

Sorry about the attitude. I have always believed that most public officials get into the business because they really want to make a measurable positive change in the the lives of their consitutents. And get credit for it. The identification of and nurturing of inside advocates is one of the most important elements of a winning policy change campaign. Keep at it and thank you in advance.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ............

Dear Hecate:

Our organization has been very grateful for Governor Patrick's public and private support for our programs. We actually got a modest increase in our budget line item, and the administration has been very responsive to a number of our suggestions for improving regulatory policies and streamlining some management practices.
We are now working with budget analysts in the Agency and the Administration and Finance to advocate for some expansion dollars, and we are preparing all of the backup materials to justify the request. (Thanks for your advice on that.)


Now tell us how to respond to some broad hints from our friends in the Administration that they have all been "knee deep" in analyzing the fiscal and human impact of the casino plan, and will be interested in briefing US about that "soon". Our lobbyist is telling us that the casino debate has "sucked the air" out of all the other important policy debates and we should start thinking of reasons to support casinos and even start thinking about earmarking some of the revenues for our programs. YUK!!


Dear Yuk

You know your Runyard Kipling's poem a has some good advice. (Dismiss the gender limiting last line -- Kipling was not the last of the white male imperialists.)

IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Keep the common touch here, and keep a laser like focus on promoting postive policy change for your constituency, including possibly earmarking casino proceeds to your programs.

The casino debate will be sucking the air out of the State House, but maybe it will also serve to illustrate and illuminate the need for a broader publc debate about all of the revenue streams that fund the governments public programs and infrastructures -- from income taxes to fishing fees to gambling. Been a lot of tax cuts in Massachusetts over the last 15 years or so. And a lot of programs have been slashed because of a shrinking reveues.

Is it time to look at the big picture?

Being recruited by the Administration - Don't want to be a sell out.

Dear Hecate

I work for a respected advocacy organization and the new Administration is recruiting me to a farly high level position in the Agency that largly manages the programs we've all been working on to improve for years. Ironically, the position is the one that is responsible for "building positive and productive relationships with outside constituencies"-- the community of providers as well as the community of advocacy organizations and parent consumer groups. The person who used to hold this position was a real jerk with a lot of control issues -- to say the least. Frankly her rudeness gave us all an excuse to go around her to her boss, who would have to meet with us to mend fences. While I can imagine how a friendly, visably concerned sincere person could really help defuse angry advocates, who would want to be "gentle" with a former colleague, I'm really uncomfortable with being used that way. On the other hand it's a lot more money than I make now.

Dear Don't want to sell out.

This ain't going to be easy for someone with principles. On one hand you might be able to be the vehicle for genuine input for outside advocates and experienced providers who have really good suggestions. On the other hand you might be setting yourself up to be a flak in charge of bringing in those same people for a cuppa coffee in order to help them try and understand the difficult choices that your boss has to make sometimes. Have an honest conversation with your prospective boss about your worries, and set up an internal process for measuring your own abilities to absorb the inevitable compromises you'll have to accept. Can you keep taking that big paycheck if you have to explain away only three stupid decisions out of ten. Five out of ten? You can sell out at any price you choose.

Keep your own counsel, pay no attention to what you see and hear

Dear Hecate:

Well, the session is over for the summer, and our line item that had been vetoed by the governor was NOT over-ridden by the Legislature. In fact they did not take up any of the vetoes, even after we did all the stuff you told us too. We got one theory from our so-called champions in the House and Senate, another theory from our so-called friends in the administration, another theory from our contract lobbyist, and still another theory from a reporter from the State House News Service we ran into in the coffee shop. As a matter of fact, the reporter's theory made the most sense. She said "Don't pay any attention to what you hear from any of them. they are all making excuses --- think of it as a big circle of potential heroes all pointing fingers at the other guy for "not doing his or her part." NOT helpful. How do I figure hout what really happened?

Confused and Bewildered


Hecate says:

Maybe you have heard the wonderful advice from Frank Mankiewicz, Press Secretary to Robert Kennedy's Presidential campaign. Keep your own counsel. Pay no attention to what you see and hear. In practice that means you soak it all in - listen to every insider's theory -- no matter how goofy or cockamamie and file away every single factoid in your head. Assuming you have a reasonable amount of judgement and common sense, there will come a moment when one of the insiders will give you one piece of gossip that will set off bells and whistles and all the odd pieces of information will fall into place. HA! That's what the SOB's were doing! Then keep it to your self and act on it strategically. None of the other insiders have to know you figured it out.