Dog Tired and barking
Published July 18, 2014
By Tom Campbell
by Tom Campbell, Executive Producer and Moderator, NC SPIN , July 17, 2014.
They call this time of year the “dog days” of summer, long days filled with heat and humidity. When our legislature is still in session lawmakers get dog-tired, resulting in a lot of barking due to short tempers.
Lawmakers reconvened for the “short session” in May almost unanimously predicting they would revise the budget they passed in 2013 and adjourn before July 4th. Unlike recent years there was no compelling crisis and no major budget shortfall. But it wasn’t long before the political and philosophical differences between the House and Senate surfaced, emphasized by the Senate budget revisions in Medicaid and education. Veteran observers immediately understood we weren’t likely to have a revised budget by the July 1 beginning of the state’s fiscal year.
Dan Way with Carolina Journal researched the legislature’s library archives and reported that since 1981, tardy budgets have been the norm. In only nine instances has the budget been passed prior to July 1st. Six were not passed until August, two were September being approved and, in 1998, the budget wasn’t concluded until the day before Halloween, October 30th.
Why is this a problem? When the ink isn’t dry on a budget until after the government spending year has already begun the impacts reverberate all across our state. State agencies need to know personnel and spending levels and untimely delays force them to make erratic and costly management and budget decisions. Local governments get whipsawed when tax, education and other regulatory policies are late in coming. For example, local education systems often base teacher supplements on teacher pay; a state pay raise will likely dictate that school systems adjust local supplements after their county budgets have passed and are in effect. This is neither good nor effective government.
One reason for late budgets is that lawmakers need to know how much revenue they have to work with, information that isn’t sufficiently known until after March and April income tax returns are received and processed. But having watched this process for many years I’m not convinced that even if we moved the start date of the new budget year, to say October 1 or even January 1, it would prevent the last-minute lollygagging and haggling that always seems to occur.
The best solution is to have clearly established legislative session lengths, dictated either by a date certain ending or by concluding after a certain number of legislative meeting days. Only 11 states, including North Carolina, have no such restrictions. In some of the other 39 states those lengths are established by state constitutions or by state statutes. What is clear is that these states understand they cannot leave it up to legislators alone to establish the discipline needed to conclude their work in a timely manner and adjourn.
There would be another and perhaps even more desirable benefit to having established session limits. If lawmakers didn’t have to make such lengthy sacrifices of time away from jobs and family perhaps we might see more experienced people offer themselves in service.
As anyone who ever had to listen a loud, continuously barking dog will tell you the noise gets old quickly. It’s time our lawmakers resolved their differences and spent their dog days of summer outside of Raleigh and fixed the real budget problem.
July 18, 2014 at 8:59 am
Norm Kelly says:
since 1981, tardy budgets have been the norm. In only nine instances has the budget been passed prior to July 1
Since 1981 the second year budget has been on time only 9 times. Yet, this year, for some reason, there's a problem with the 'norm' being met. Why? Are media-types upset this time around because the Republicans are in charge? Did it not matter quite so much when the demons controlled Raleigh? Did we get the same type of passionate editorials & 'news' coverage when the demons were late with the 2nd year budget?
Of course, something news worthy is part of this post. I like Tom. I like the show. I'm glad this blog is available, where we can all read & comment on what others are saying or 'thinking'. Kinda like this one: 'Unlike recent years there was no compelling crisis and no major budget shortfall'. What timeframe does 'recent years' cover? I remember when the dishonest, downright criminal Gov Easley was in office. Not only did he steal money from everywhere to 'balance' the budget, but every year we were told that the budget was going to be in the red; some years worse than others. Then Gov Bev took over. Not much of a leader; but certainly not as bad as the Washington occupier. Was the budget in better shape? Not according to any reports coming out of the legislature. We were repeatedly told the budget was cut to the bone, yet taxes were steadily increased. We were told there was no place else to reduce state spending, yet spending steadily increased. We were repeatedly told that revenue to the state would be significantly less than project/expected/required. Now that Republicans control Raleigh, the 'news' media is full of stories about how bad the budget is, how it's screw-d 'average' people, been a disaster for big education, devastated the environment, and multiple other calamities, and yet sometimes tidbits of good news emerge. I'm willing to bet Tom gets roasted by a majority of 'news' paper editorials. That is, if the 'news' papers even acknowledge that Tom wrote this. And Chris will ignore this item the next time he's on the show. Doesn't fit the lib talking points.
'a state pay raise will likely dictate that school systems adjust local supplements after their county budgets have passed and are in effect'. This could be a problem. An alternative would be for local governments to simply craft their budget according to the information available at the time, according to the numbers already generated in an existing state budget, ignoring that the legislature MIGHT adjust the 2nd year of a 2 year budget, and implement their own budgets on time. Then, the local governments could simply ignore that the state made any adjustments; teacher supplemental pay would be frozen as of the date the local gov sets their budget. Done. No adjustment necessary. No need for the local gov't to go back and adjust their budgets; no need to take money out of parks & rec to cover increased teacher supplements because the state couldn't do their job in a timely fashion. Stop having all the downstream gov'ts adjust and have budget woes past their own deadlines. There's no need to wait for the state to do their job. Set a budget and go with it. If the state increases the amount of money they spend at the local level, then it's a boost to the local budget. Otherwise, the only adjustment at the local level is if the state REDUCES the amount provided to the local level. Otherwise, ignore the state budget altogether. Just because you are late in getting your job done, does not mean my job has to be rushed or be adjusted. I'm a son-of-a-gun to work with, trust me. I don't change much because you are a slacker; I'll probably just make your life more miserable for not being able to properly do your job. So I'm probably not the best to 'negotiate' things like budgets. But there also has to be some common sense when dealing with a group that doesn't understand the repercussions of their own inability to perform. It's possible for the local gov'ts to NOT accept the additional stress placed on them by a legislature not willing to properly do their job. Regardless of whether the legislature not performing is Demoncrat or Republican.
