One of the things that came out of last year’s budget process was how much the “status quo” is relied on to formulate budgets. Each department, and especially the BOE operates under the assumption that is has spent all of its budgeted money from the previous fiscal year and asks for an increase or decrease (though I’ve yet to see one) based on perceived needs and demands. Mayor Moccia started down the path of asking department heads for the status of unspent funds, famously circling around the number of trees taken down by DPW compared to the budget allocations.
This was an example of good government in action. A greater example would be if the mayoral candidates opted to accept zero-based budgeting as their fiscal policy.
Under the current system, there isn’t much effort made into determining how well the budgeted money has been spent, whether another department or program could spend it better, or if there is a higher priority department
or program in need of funds. There is a lack of data that supports spending priorities now, which makes it difficult to determine how effective a program is. No department is automatically forced to ask the tough questions each year under this ‘incremental’ approach, because the only question that is focused on is how much more is needed instead of starting with whether it is needed in the first place or not.
Zero Based Budgeting changes the process. Department heads would begin the budget cycle with a funding base of zero and justify all expenditures for the coming year, not just requested increases to existing line items. The chief benefit results in mitigating the common tactic of spending “up to the budget†habits that currently take place.
Under Zero Based Budgeting, DPW, as an example, would have to provide the detail of its spending requirements that includes specifics about filling a specific number of potholes, or listing specific road paving by street, for the coming year. We may start to discover that our streets are filled with pot holes because we do not have enough personnel to inspect them following utility digging, not that there is a lack of pot hole funding. The idea at stake here is that this method forces departments to gather the data necessary for our government officials to choose between competing projects knowing that there are limited resources available.
How we budget, who is accountable, and what data we use to make budgeting decisions is the type of issues that our common council and mayoral candidates would be talking about. Mayor Moccia took an important first step in acting this past spring. Let’s hope that the conversation about spending extends past the usual short campaign slogans of just being fiscally responsible.
