Finals are around the corner and I have been busy so I have been lax in my bloggitorial duties, fortunately Fred Thompson is here to rescue me:
According to the Pew Center on the States, a part of the Pew Research Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, only eight states fared worse than Oregon in a study of government money management practices. They are about half right and pretty much all wrong. They are right that we haven’t faced up to one very big, long standing problem: the extreme volatility of state government’s revenue structure. They are wrong when they confuse policy advocacy with problem diagnosis.
What don’t they like about us? We don’t have a sales tax; our ‘rainy-day’ fund is insufficient; and we have the kicker. All true; but adopting a sales tax and eliminating the kicker would still leave us with a revenue volatility problem, which is the main concern driving the Pew Center’s assessment, and it is too late to build a big enough‘rainy-day’ fund to make a significant difference the next time revenues go south(probably, next fiscal year), even if that were a good idea, which it is not. Moreover, as my previous column noted, we can deal with the revenue volatility problem directly.The great things about Oregon’s revenue structure are that it is fair and adequate.
The Pew Center damns Oregon’s professional money managers with faint praise, saying thestate “employs an impressive number of talented individuals. Unfortunately for them, allthe good intentions in the world can't overcome the state's thoroughly unwieldy fiscalstructure.” Frankly, their accomplishments deserve better than that. Oregon’s Treasury functions (investment management, debt management, and cash management) are among the best in the nation (as judged by their treasury officers in other states and financial analysts in the private sector). Oregon’s budgeters and revenue forecasters are equally respected. The state’s accountants and internal auditors consistently produce the top-rated general-purpose financial statements and a squeaky-clean, government largely free of financial scandal. Much the same thing can be said of many of Oregon’s state agencies and departments, including the often-maligned Department of Human Services,which has recently made dramatic improvements in its money management practices.
Oregon’s fiscal structure is a lot of things, but unwieldy it’s not.
1 comment:
Most of your post is correct. I quarrel only with your belief that state revenues are "adequate." The reality is that since Measure 5 and the adopted need to fund the public school system the state has been short around 20% year in and year out in finding its other responsibilities all while leaving our schools underfunded. We need to address the issues you and Pew agree about and also the clear and dangerous under-funding of our basic services.
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