Charlotte Observer, July 2, 2008
Write N.C. budget in a businesslike way
The late Jimmy Green, a powerful Eastern
North Carolina lawmaker who at the time was speaker of the N.C.
House, came by several years ago to brief Observer editors on
the upcoming legislative session.
What will be the biggest issue, we asked.
What it always is, he replied: How to divvy
up the money.
So it is.
While our General Assembly deals with many
important and challenging issues, one of the toughest is always
how to divide the money appropriated in the state budget.
Because there's never enough money to satisfy
every legislator's wish list, the finalizing of the budget is
the stage of the legislative session when democracy often is
thrown out the window and raw power rules.
When the last deals are being made on who gets what, knowledge
is power. Yet too often the legislature's most powerful members
don't share information in a timely manner with their colleagues
or with the public.
The result? Non-financial matters that should
not be part of a budget bill suddenly show up in it. Money that
wasn't there appears as if by magic. Surprise funding for legislators'
pet projects is tucked away to be discovered only long after
the budget has been adopted.
This helter-skelter, under-the-table process
concentrates too much power in too few hands. It's no way to
spend the state's money.
At the bottom of this column today Jane Pinsky,
director of the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform,
urges legislators to adopt a budget process that would better
serve the interests of not only interested citizens but also
members of the legislature.
The reforms her group and others recommend
would accomplish three worthwhile objectives: allow the public
to see what's happening to its money; give legislators an opportunity
to know what's in the budget before they vote on it; and in
general conduct the people's business in an open and orderly
manner.
Adopting these procedures would serve the
interests of everyone but those few powerful legislators who
benefit from keeping their colleagues and the public in the
dark.
To the legislators, we urge this action:
Take a look at the reform recommended below, and do it.
