Butch Otter |
Last year, the first state of the state speech by new Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter included a roster of odds and ends, but some of the big stuff - from running sideways with the Statehouse renovation to wiping out the Department of Administration - wasn't explicitly laid out; those things emerged later as people read the fine print in the budget address.
We may not know for a while yet whether that bit of history will recur, but Otter's second SOS speech does seem a little more notable than the first. Although at times a little more ideological than the first - he made sure to get those quotes in from the Federalist Papers and from Ronald Reagan - what jumps out is some of the particularly practical stuff he included.
And atop that list is something that you'd think more administrators (especially conservative ones) would support but few have proposed: Zero-based budgeting, something we've long endorsed and rarely seen.
Otter skimmed through it quickly enough in his speech (his whole talk was relatively brief, under 40 minutes) that listeners unfamiliar with the idea may have missed it entirely. At present, most governments including state governments budget mostly on "base-plus" - that is, with rare exceptions, starting the budget process with existing spending, and then tack on additions from there. Existing spending doesn't usually get a thorough look in the budgeting process, so that waste, overspending or even underspending rarely get properly addressed. "Zero-based budgeting" requires an item-by-item look at the whole budget, checking for need, efficiency and appropriate spending levels for everything. Because it is such a larg-scale effort, the idea usually is to break up something as large as a state government into pieces; Otter would divide state spending into six pieces, and rotate them over a six-year cycle. He would start the process with the 2010 fiscal year, which would mean the budget adopted by the 2009 legislative session. That would give budget planners the upcoming year to start to ramp up.
That double-header presidential debate last night was a fine piece of popcorn television, and told quite a bit about who's what and where in the standings. The element of advice, though, has to do with debate planners in the Northwest, as candidate debates start to emerge for primary and general: Do it generally the way ABC/Facebook did it last night. Which is to say: Get out of the way of the candidates speaking for themselves and conversing with each other. There were some good insights and real perspective into the candidates you couldn't have gotten with the traditional press conference-style "debate" which usually leads only to canned answers to canned questions. Last night, the candidates got a chance to mix it up and speak at length on specific ideas. It wasn't perfect, but it was one of the best debate models we've seen for a while. May more presidential meetups, and down into the state levels, operate that way.
Bill Fromhold
District 49
John Ladenburg