Capital budget shows need for external review of legislative operations
Published Sunday, May 25, 2008
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Stumble It!So it won’t be “Christmas in spring” after all.
You may remember that’s how our friends in Ketchikan described the pork-laden state construction budget stuffed with projects for Southeast.
“It’s beyond our dreams,” the Ketchikan Daily News said of the bill. “Although not beyond our wildest dreams.”
With Gov. Sarah Palin’s vetoes, the bill is not so dreamy. Palin made progress toward regional balance and restraint in the capital budget, but not enough.
The excesses this year illustrate weaknesses in a system set up in the early days of Alaska’s oil bonanza.
More than a quarter-century ago, lawmakers adopted the idea that it was normal to slip projects into the budget with no questions asked and no public review.
Governors going back to Jay Hammond have found this acceptable.
But the result is an inability to develop regional or statewide priorities and a spending pattern that is distorted by the quirks of individual lawmakers.
Missing from the system is any organized effort to compare the merits of competing proposals.
Our legislative system — which elevated the likes of Pete Kott, Vic Kohring and Tom Anderson to power without apology or embarrassment — is in need of reform.
The haphazard way in which capital budget decisions are made is just one element of a flawed process.
Residents of Southeast will object that they were unfairly targeted in the vetoes, but the fault lies with legislators from their part of the state who tried to make off with “everything but the squeal.”
With a plan to spend $5,832 per capita in Sitka and $1,640 per capita in the Fairbanks area, the imbalance was obvious.
If the vetoes in the Fairbanks area were not severe, that’s because there was not much to cut.
We had two-fifths of the Senate minority and one-fifteenth of the Senate majority, which made for a diet that bordered on vegetarian.
Palin cut $268 million, which was less than 10 percent of the $3 billion capital budget.
For Anchorage, she let stand a $15 million appropriation to begin planning and dirt work for a new $80 million to $100 million sports facility at UAA.
The UA regents did not ask for the $15 million. They did ask for $1 million, but it was barely noticeable on the UA wish list.
The Legislature funded the top priority of the regents, $48 million to repair equipment and buildings, and the No. 3 priority, a $46 million health sciences building in Anchorage.
But lawmakers ignored the second priority, $66 million for the first phase of a new Fairbanks science building that has been needed for years.
That the regents believe the academic building for UAF is more important than the sports building for UAA should have produced a different result in Juneau.
But defenders of the status quo say the Legislature has worked this way ever since oil money began to flow in the billions.
More than one person has labeled my attitude as naive.
The money approved for sports in Anchorage has nothing to do with the money not approved for an academic program in Fairbanks, they said.
But I don’t have to be as sharp as the warden of Barbados to think the lack of a connection between those funding decisions is another reason to question just what it is we’re doing.
As I wrote in January, the best response to the legislative corruption scandal — which has yet to run its course — is for Alaska to follow the example of Oregon and create an independent citizen commission to review legislative operations and suggest improvements.
As far as I can tell, no one in the Legislature agrees that after 50 years of statehood the legislative branch needs a review by someone outside the ranks of incumbents.
We run the risk of missing what lessons there are to learn from the actions of Pete Kott, Vic Kohring, Tom Anderson, etc.
Community Discussion
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"With a plan to spend $5,832 per capita in Sitka and $1,640 per capita in the Fairbanks area, the imbalance was obvious."
But imbalance doesn't necessarily imply unfairness. I don't think a fair budget has to be one that is apportioned by population, but rather one that meets the greatest needs and raises the lowest standards of living. That said, you've surely looked over the budget and over Governor Palin's cuts more than I have, and I'm not actually disagreeing with your analysis.
"... the best response to the legislative corruption scandal ... is for Alaska to follow the example of Oregon and create an independent citizen commission to review legislative operations and suggest improvements."
This sounds like an exciting idea. What can you tell us about how well (or poorly) that has worked? The first question that comes to my mind is, How do they keep the citizen commission from being as tainted as the legislature, or, What makes it so independent? Not to say that it has to achieve perfection to be worth doing, but safeguards are built into the Oregon system to keep it a force for improvement?
What happened to your "analysis" for past years? Show too much $$ for "Fair"banks rather than SE Alaska?
Paul:
I'll make it a point to highlight some aspects of the Oregon experience. I don't have the information in front of me, but I think the underlying theme was that an external review was deemed appropriate just to make sure that the institution was operating in the way it should. The reviewers included academic, lobbyists, ex-lawmakers, current lawmakers, business types, political activists and regular citizens.
To "Ms. DeltaLady."
Always great to hear from you.
The details are on my desk. I haven't written about them yet, along with about two dozen other things, but I'm glad you reminded me.
In fact, the per capita distributions in recent years were much closer than this year, which is why the Southeast legislators erred in grabbing too much for themselves, creating an obvious veto target.
In general, I'd say that one of the improvements this year in the pork barrel budget was that background information on projects was posted. The problem, however, is that it took place after the fact.
In years to come, lawmakers need to post that information as soon as it comes in. In other words, when the Delta or the Fairbanks XYZ organization asks for money for a racetrack or streetlights or a new building, share that with the public. Don't hide it until the last days of the session.
And don't leave out the hundreds of requests that didn't make it. If a group is asking for public money, then share that information with the public.
Lawmakers can correct this error next year.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the system we have is corrupt, but it invites backroom deals. That has been the case since the advent of the one-third, one-third, one-third pork barrel distribution plan. That was the scheme under which the governor, House and Senate each had the "right" to allocate one-third of the pork.
The problem with this approach is that while the executive is supposed to take a statewide view and there are commissioners who have to justify projects and take competing needs into account, legislators don't.
For decades the assumption in Juneau has been that individual lawmakers get money that they can bestow upon constituents without any formal review of the merits of the projects.
In the wrong hands, this has the potential to be an officially sanctioned form of buying votes.
One step we can take is to ask that lawmakers share the pork barrel proposals that they intend to fund with local government officials and the public in advance.
All in all, I think we can do better.
I'm open to suggestions.
I agree that something has got to change. The fact is we can hold legislators accountable. I guess folks are pretty happy with senator Stedmean, because there are no candidates as of yet, filing for his seat as of yesterday. So, unless he pulls a Young, which will happen, to anyone if they're not held to account, we'll have to put up with it for a bit longer.
The governor did hold the line a bit in terms of his seat. Maybe next year's organization will change things - although I'd doubt it.
Similar to the minimal Mat-Su Valley project vetoes. We'll just have to wait to see who holds her to account.
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