Michigan budget shortfalls: could transparency help?

Michigan’s constitution requires that the state government operate with a balanced budget.

But Michigan legislators returned from a two week break without a plan on how to address the state’s more than $300 million budget shortfall for the current year. Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) is seemingly waiting for Congress to revive a measure that would give Michigan $560 million in additional federal money to help provide health care for the poor. Republicans are not counting on the money, instead planning more budget cuts.

The Michigan Senate already has voted to erase a projected shortfall of $1.3 billion in the state’s general fund through spending cuts and savings in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, but Democrats who control the House oppose many of those measures.

It’s a tough job, but legislators are compensated for their troubles, and compensated well. Michigan lawmakers earn the second highest salary of state legislators, $79,650, next only to California.

However, despite all of the cost-cutting benefits of going online, Michigan has yet to post its check register. Unlike other transparency projects, posting Michigan’s check register online would apparently come at no cost because of the way that the state deals with accounting.

Involving citizens in the process by taking steps to become more proactively transparent won’t solve all of Michigan’s problems, but it would be a great first step in budget discipline. For example, the information that Michigan legislators are the second-highest paid in the nation is invaluable. People have a right to that information. There’s nothing that increases prudence like public scrutiny.

Increasing revenue works in Oregon, but how about cutting spending?

Yesterday, Meaures 66 and 67 passed in Oregon. The measures will raise $730 million to fill in a shortfall in the state’s 2009-2011 biennial budget for education, health care and public safety by raising personal income taxes for individuals earning more than $125,000 and increasing corporate taxes on all businesses, except sole proprietorships.

Another way Oregon may consider cutting spending is to cut some taxpayer-funded lobbying, the use of public money by a government entity to lobby another government for money. One report places the amount of money spent nationally on taxpayer-funded lobbying at $1 trillion each year.

Some local governments have come to realize this. Jackson County has recently decided to leave the Association of Oregon Counties. With dues at $31,000 a year, an inability to dictate the lobbying prioties to pursue, and rampant inefficiency, it makes sense that the county would want to step back and localize its decisions.

Here’s hoping Oregon survives the budget crises that have been so common lately around the country.

State budget crises: curiouser and curiouser

Sunshine Review has been tracking the state budget crises that are happening in basically every state.

The crises continue to worsen. However, the story is more interesting than just a shortage of cash: the crises seem to be getting worse in many states. In January 2009, the expected budget shortfall for Alaska, for example, was $402 million. The current estimate places the shortfall now as $1.35 billion, a more than 200% increase.

In Florida, the shortfal was expected to be $2.3 billion, and is now $6 billion.

Illinois had a $2.5 billion shortfall last year, which is now $7.29 billion.

Wisconsin’s shortfall grew from $593 million to $3.1 billion.

Sunshine Review discovered these changes when checking the history tab in the state budget article. One unique advantage to the wiki format is being able to track changes in a news story as they happen and compare the current version of an article to an older version. To see the changes, click here and scroll down.