Ah, to think California almost made it five whole months before diving back into the depths of a budget crisis. Yup, it’s true. Cleverly though, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) released their report over the long weekend (or maybe just before, it’s not entirely clear from where I’m sitting) so… you know… maybe nobody will see that we’re $20.7 billion in the hole through 2011. Yea, I’m sure nobody will notice. In fact, according to said report, we’re likely to continue to see tens of billions of dollars in deficits until 2014 when revenues are projected to rebound (I think I’ll still keep my fingers crossed on this one, you know, just in case!). Read the LAO’s report here: http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/PubDetails.aspx?id=2143.
So where is the money going to come from this time? Nobody knows for sure, but likely sources are health and human services, education (oi), and corrections. The only possible silver lining to this hurricane of a disaster is the possibility of a lessening of regulations on small businesses (I’m giving that a preemptive “yay”!).
The scary thing (at least for me) about this upcoming budget crisis is that, “Legislators have expressed concerns that approving a balanced state budget will be harder this time around, as some of the easier cuts have already been made.” (http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/billion-15872-california-deficit.html) Um, excuse me, did you say “easier cuts”? Am I the only one who recalls how long it took to resolve the last budget crisis? When we made those “easier cuts”? When people were getting I.O.U.s instead of cash for the tax refunds? Anyone? Anyone?
Why is it that the only people who seem to understand the problem and offer real, realistic solutions are not our elected officials? A letter to the editor published in the Ventura County Star gives some great ideas, check them out at this link: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/nov/26/ob9budgetletts27/?partner=yahoo_feeds.
When will the legislature start to work on closing the new budget gap? Well, your guess is pretty much as good as mine, but if you want to follow what the legislature is up to, check out their website: http://www.legislature.ca.gov/.
It's been said many times that California doesn't have a revenue problem; It has a spending problem. While there is no single solution to the very complex budgetary problems the state has, there are small steps we can take to mitigate the problem. We can start on local levels by encouraging our elected officials to spend our tax dollars wisely. I live in Los Angeles County, and we're seeing a glimmer of hope emerge thanks to the Board of Supervisors. Recently, they reissued an RFP for vendor services to operate the county's GAIN case management services (a welfare-to-work program) - an important service to have in a down economy. I expect the same two companies will submit proposals as last year - incumbent Maximus Inc. and newcomer Policy Studies Inc. (PSI).
ReplyDeleteMaximus has maintained its contract with the county for many years now, but its cost to the taxpayers keeps skyrocketing. If the new bids resemble those from last year, we can expect that the Maximus bid will cost taxpayers almost a million dollars more than PSI's.
What's more, Maximus has a track record of poor performance. Under its latest three year contract, Maximus has been cited repeatedly for failing to meet required goals in 5 of 8 categories (according to the LA Times). Last year, the Department of Public Social Services favored PSI based on scoring done on the two companies by a neutral third party. PSI scored 9,082 out of 9,616 possible points in the procurement process, whereas Maximus scored 7,824 of 9,616. PSI won by a 13% margin on technical score and also submitted the lowest bid, which was 6% cheaper.
Even worse, Maximus has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to buy the support of the Board of Supervisors through lobbying and campaign donations.
I, for one, am grateful that the BOS reissued the RFP and am confident they will select the right choice for LA. In these tough economic times, we need our local elected officials to scrutinize how every tax dollar is being spent and eliminate waste wherever possible. I hope we see a changing of the guard here very soon.
I would like to suggest that California implement an oil extraction fee, which 29 states already have implemented.
ReplyDeleteWhile many companies are going out of business or cutting back employees, creating massive unemployment, oil company profits are still high.
As an example, Texas earmarks it's oil extraction fee for higher education, with none of those funds going towards administration.
Wyoming, Dick Cheney's state, has a gas extraction fee.
And I would hope that as our state has a more educated work force, less money would be needed for our correctional system.
And while we're at it, let's have a tax code overhaul. I just learned our tax code has not been overhauled since the 1960's where the state was primarily a manufacturing economy. We are now primarily a service economy.
There are solutions but most of our legislators have to decide to start legislating for the people instead of the companies and institutions represented by the lobbyists.