Changing the Budget Status Quo
December 2008
When lawmakers come to Olympia in January they will be tasked with solving a projected $5 billion budget deficit. Thankfully there are several common sense reforms that policymakers can adopt to change the budget status quo and help put the state on the path toward sustainable budgeting. Adopting these reforms will help promote efficiency, improve the quality of services to the public and resolve the constant sense of crisis that pervades the state’s public finances.
Although the amount of money the state collects from citizens continues to increase, lawmakers regularly boost state spending by an even faster rate. The result is a structural deficit created by the gap between the increased level of planned spending and the actual increase in tax revenues.
Recommendations
1. Adopt performance-based,
Priorities of Government
budgeting to slow the rate
of spending growth.
2. Place performance
outcomes directly into the
budget.
3. Adopt a 72-hour budget
timeout.
4. Require updated six-year
budget forecasts be tied to
quarterly revenue forecasts
or adoption of new
budgets.
5. Require completed fiscal
notes before bills can be
acted on.
6. Adopt a constitutional
amendment to limit the
growth of spending to
inflation and population
growth.
Read or download Changing the Budget Status Quo (pdf)
