Weekly Opinion Editorial
AUDITS AND
ZBB!
by Steve Fair
On Wednesday, the Oklahoma state board of Equalization
certified $8.2 billion for next year’s state government budget. That is $574.5 million more than last year. The amount was $37.8 million less than what
was initially certified in December, much of that due to the slowing of oil and
gas exploration. The bottom line is the
legislature will have substantially more money to spend than last year and they
went right to work spending it.
On Thursday, HB#1780, authored by Speaker Charles
McCall, R-Atoka, passed the House 94-0.
If passed by the Senate and signed into law, it will provide a $1,200
across the board pay raise for public school teachers. “I have said many times that the pay
raise last year was a good first step, but my goal is to get our teachers to
number one in the region in pay.” McCall said.
Governor Stitt asked the legislature
to pass the pay hike in his State of the State address. The $1,200 is on top of the $6,000 the
legislature gave teachers last year and will make Oklahoma teachers the highest
paid in the six state region. Seeing an
opportunity, the education lobby said they want more and plan to press
lawmakers to increase funding even more.
Virtually every state agency has also said
they want part of the additional revenue.
After three lean years, they want funding and staffing restored to past
levels. All of the large agencies and
many of the smaller ones employ outside lobbyists at taxpayer expense to lobby
for more of your tax dollars. This was a
practice Governor Stitt condemned during this campaign, said he would work to
stop after his inauguration, but so far, the lobbyists are still on the job, ‘educating’
the legislators at 23rd and Lincoln.
Three observations:
First, where are the audits? During
the campaign, every candidate for governor, including then candidate for Governor Stitt, talked constantly
about audits. Yet, a month after taking
office, the governor has yet to order these comprehensive performance audits he
promised that drew applause on the campaign trail. Are they going to be done or was that just a campaign
talking point? The legislature- and the
governor- should want to know where the need and the waste is at in state
government before the budget process begins.
Second, the time to save money is when you
have some. This year’s revenue will have
many state lawmakers looking for new exciting programs to fund and bureaucrats
will line up with ideas. This is the
perfect time to start Zero Based Budgeting(ZBB), a system that requires
justification of every single penny in a budget. It is used by most consumer product goods
companies(CPG). Saturday’s Wall Street
Journal had a full page article about ZBB used by CPGs and how it cut expenses.
Third, the legislature needs to remember
who is paying the bills. Government
consumes- the private sector creates.
Paying teachers the regional average is admirable, but doing it on the
backs of hard working Oklahomans who struggle to make it is not wise and it is
not sustainable.
Turning Oklahoma around will not start
with bureaucrats- it will start with the butchers, bakers and candlestick
makers. Work at getting them to the
regional average and everything else will fall into line.
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