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New York’s Budget Processes—As Bad as Ever
April 7, 2008

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It’s déjà vu all over again.  Despite years of budget reform rhetoric, the budget is not only late, it is being hammered out in secret.  Lawmakers seem to have returned to their roots – they are ignoring the public’s demands for a more open government and instead are assuming that they can ride out voters’ complaints in the hope that all will be forgotten by November.

In fairness to lawmakers, this year is unique.  It was only a few weeks ago that Governor Spitzer resigned in disgrace and Lt. Governor Paterson was vaulted into the budget fray.  It’s hard to blame him for this mess.  He did not design the budget and he was not a key advisor to Spitzer on the budget. 

Most of the blame rests with the legislative leaders; Senate Majority Leader Bruno and Assembly Speaker Silver.  Under New York law, once the Governor issues his executive budget, the “ball is largely in the court” of the legislative branch.  It is up to them to debate the Governor’s plan, amend it and pass it by April 1st.

There can be no doubt that the legislature froze up while watching Governor Spitzer’s political self-immolation.  It was a shock and undoubtedly distracting.  But legislators get paid to act on the budget, not be spectators to the destruction of Governor Spitzer’s political career.

Yet that is precisely what happened.  Legislators have told me that budget discussions ground to a halt while they waited for Lt. Governor Paterson to become Governor Paterson.  As a result, they argue that they had to hammer out a budget deal in secret in order to get their work done on time.

Except they are late.  So New Yorkers are getting the worst of both worlds – a late budget being negotiated in secret.

When it comes to democracy, openness matters.  Secret negotiations provide a fertile field for well-connected lobbyists to hotwire deals that benefit their clients and few others.  Secrecy usually leads to laws that hurt the interests of the many while protecting those of the few. 

Want to know why the Bigger Better Bottle Bill fell off the budget when the Governor and Assembly supported it?  Curious as to why the basic welfare grant wasn’t increased after 18 years?  Since these items were negotiated in secret, we’ll never truly know what happened and why.

The return to the bad old days of budgeting also means that rank and file legislators join the public on the sidelines.  Their perspectives and experience gets cut out of the budget making process—the process of raising and spending $124 billion of our money.

What should be done?

Albany needs a good dose of openness.  Here are four steps lawmakers can take to really change Albany:

1. The governor should convene regular, well-organized leaders meetings.  While he is not technically responsible for the legislative action on the budget, the Governor must use his bully pulpit to force the legislative leaders to publicly articulate the issues that are holding up an agreement.  Once the public knows these issues, it can weigh in.  Kept in the dark, it cannot.
2. The legislature should be mandated to hold substantive conference committee meetings to publicly debate proposed spending for the state budget.  There is a statutory requirement that the legislature hold conference committees to publicly hash out their differences on the budget.  But the language of the law is vague and allows the current process to be a sham.  New statutory requirements that mandate that legislators do real work – in public – in these committees will help ensure that the public can monitor the progress of budget deliberations.
3. There must be an extremely detailed accounting of all state spending, and it must be publicly available.  Under the current budget deliberations only a tiny portion of the state budget ever gets publicly reviewed.  An extremely detailed accounting of all of state spending will help the public have an educated perspective on which programs deserve support, and which ones do not.
4. Create an Independent Budget Office.  The federal government, New York City and many states have independent fiscal watchdogs.  These entities provide unbiased, independent analyses that the public can rely on. 

At the end of his Friday news conference, Governor Paterson stated that he was going to “crack the whip” on negotiators.

While it’s past time for him to do so, it is not too late to begin discussions on reforming the budget process.  If lawmakers wish to begin to restore the public’s sagging support for Albany, reforms must be enacted.

That’s all for now.  I’ll be keeping an eye on the Capitol and will talk to you again next week.

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