ALEC's State Budget Reform Toolkit will advance a set of budget and procurement best practices to guide state policymakers as they work to solve the current budget shortfalls. The toolkit assists legislators in prioritizing and more efficiently delivering core government services through advancing Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty.

This State Budget Reform Toolkit is designed to help legislators address the serious financial crises in the states by changing their budgetary system from the conventional input system, which is clearly a failed policy model, to one focused on outcomes.

This new budgetary system is called priority-based budgeting. Priority-based budgeting means state officials and citizens must first determine the core functions of government. While this may seem like an elementary step, it is seldom taken before legislative appropriations are made. Gaining control of a state budget means the following questions must be answered:

• What is the role of government?
• What are the essential services government must provide to fulfill its purpose?
• How will we know if government is doing a good job?
• What should all of this cost?
• When cuts must be made, how will they be properly prioritized?

Only by carefully considering the proper role of government can legislators and governors do an effective job protecting individual rights, while providing essential services to taxpayers in an efficient, cost-effective manner. This is not an "anti-government" philosophy; rather it is ensuring that what government is supposed to do, it will do well. Furthermore, great savings can be obtained if legislators and agencies do not spend time determining how a particular function can be performed better, faster, and cheaper if it is not a core function of government. Priority-based budgeting views all of state government- all of its agencies and functions-as a single enterprise. It evaluates new proposals in the context of all that state government does, and develops strategies for achieving priority results with an eye on all available state resources.

Priority-based budgeting helps to keep a citizen-focused perspective on the budget. It assumes we can change the rules, if necessary, to maximize the results we can get from government. This includes removing barriers standing in the way of delivering results to citizens.

Without this approach, state budgets resemble an iceberg, with decades worth of spending unseen and unexamined under the water, while the debate rages year after year over the small part that sticks up out of the water. The longer state lawmakers continue to use the cost-plus model, the more “hardwired” their deficit problems will become.

Filed Under : Solutions