It's a seemingly low-key proposal that's flown under the radar of local journalists and politicos. But the new Budget and Finance Committee being created by San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin has the potential to radically alter how this city sets its spending priorities.
Peskin has presented the change as a simple bureaucratic shift that would reunite a Budget Committee ... (to) give it a better "institutional memory" to track reforms and efficiencies. ...But during an extended interview, Peskin ...cast the initiative as a transfer of power from the executive branch to the district- elected supervisors.
"It always has to be that the mayor proposes and the board disposes, right?" Peskin said. "The President of the United States says, 'Here, Congress, is my budget', and Congress says, 'You know, we don't need the F-18 bomber,' and they cut it. What ... I really believe... is we shouldn't just follow, we should lead in crafting the city's budget."
"My hope is this Finance and Budget Committee sits down in March and April and May, before there is any document that comes out of the Mayor's Office, and they say - pursuant to public hearings and input from the public - "This is what we want to see in the budget. This is what the budget must contain."
I found this intriguing because one of our clients is also engaged in a sea change regarding the legislative budgeting process. This year, the Michigan House of Representatives is the first legislative body in the nation to apply the principles of results-budgeting¹. It's already meant significant changes in simply the questions asked and the answers given.
New questions have been asked.
Up front, the legislators asked - What are the results that citizens care about? Instead of simply reacting to the Governor's budget submission (which was by agency), the Michigan Legislature established its own set of priorities, based on commissioned focus groups and their personal experience listening to constituents. The nine outcomes they heard citizens to want are -
- The economy is thriving and people are working
- Kids are succeeding in school
- People are prepared for jobs and the new economy
- Our natural resources are protected and conserved
- People are safe where they live, work, and play
- People are healthy
- Those most vulnerable live free from harm and as self-sufficiently as possible
- People and goods move around the state quickly and safely
- Government is effective, efficient, and accountable
The legislators didn't stop with articulating these priorities. They chose measurable indicators that Michigan could use to know the rate of progress with each outcome - and mapped out key factors considered to produce each result.
In sub-committee, legislators asked budget presenters new questions. Instead of asking what programs do, they asked about measurable results the program has had for the money and what it planned to contribute in the future.
New responses from those who appear before House Appropriations
To be fair, the budget has not been enacted yet - and it's hard to summarize final differences based on this approach. But, early adapters reframed their information in terms of results and quickly communicated the change in process to others. As examples, check out these websites -
Michigan State University Extension Service
Michigan Children
Here's how someone in the midst of the change is experiencing it. In this early interview² with the Chair of House Appropriations, Representative Scott Hummel anticipated some of the changes and challenges --
We're going to be asking the departments, and different groups, what kind of results we're getting from the dollars that we're putting towards those programs.
...It's going to take some excruciating time to evaluate the programs, especially when you start matching them up against each other and ranking them. I think we'll probably have some spirited debates about how we do that, or how the rankings come out.
...We have to continually remind ourselves that we need to ask different questions. We need to look with a more discriminating eye. Just because something has been funded in the past, don't just look at the funding, look at the whole program. "What are we doing and why?"
During hearings, some subcommittee chairs had their "results maps" enlarged onto poster board and displayed at every meeting. Departments and advocates were repeatedly asked to document the results of their program and how they connected to the nine priorities. All chairs had sub-committee members rank the programs based on their contribution to those results -- then used the rankings to inform buying decisions.
In presenting the budget bills, chairs talked about the results they WERE buying, not just the "cuts" they were making. They gave example after example of how the new results orientation informed their decisions. For example, in higher education, the House replaced a historic politics-driven funding process with a results-based formula that rewards universities for, among other things, graduating students and generating research dollars.
Riveting!
Now, reverting to the title of this Connie's Corner, is it possible that we are seeing the front edge of a new kind of legislative activism? Will there be other examples emerging of Legislative bodies taking a new role in budgeting? How will it change accountability as practiced between funders and those who receive public funds? And, what's even more important, what effects will this have on better results for citizens?
Keep your eye out...
¹ See The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis, by David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson, Basic Books, 2004.
² MIRS, "Hummel On POG - 'It's Working'", March 14, 2005
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