Tight Times Call For Tough Choices; Legislature Ought To Make Them

By Scott R Cooper, Crook County Judge
Published in the Central Oregonian, November 2002

With the November general election over, one thing is clear: Oregon voters are in no mood for additional taxes, and the outlook for the income tax measures to be voted on in January is slim. Most legislators seem to have accepted the inevitable, and the rhetoric now is all about how best to proceed with cutting the budget.

Exactly how the newly elected governor and the legislature are supposed to undertake this, they don’t seem to know. Governor and legislators, Republicans and Democrats alike all seem to agree that preserving funding for schools is a priority, but beyond that, we’ve heard no concrete ideas.

Personally, I’m glad I’m not a legislator. The problem is enormous. How to cut $500 million from state services after you have already cut $750 million. I suppose it could be done easily if all the legislators would agree among themselves that none of them are going to run for re-election, and they are just going to go to Salem and do what needs to be done without worrying about the political fallout, but that’s not likely to happen. So they need a framework in which to consider what to do next.

May I suggest a solution that I like to call: “Back to Basics”?

I recently ran across a report issued by the National Association of State Budget Officers. The report is an annual publication issued this past summer which examines how much 49 states (Alaska isn’t included for some reason) spent in 2001 and what the breakdown was of those expenditures. Policy wonks and numbers junkies can look at the report themselves on the web at http://www.nasbo.org/Publications.html

On page 10 of the report, Oregon’s problem shows up.

That page reflects a categorized breakdown of state expenditures. The report shows the amount states spent as a percentage of their total expenditures in fiscal year 2001 for education, higher education, public assistance, Medicaid, corrections, transportation and all other.

I think most people would agree that those specific categories listed first are the essentials people want from their state governments: educate our kids, help the needy, keep criminals off the streets and make sure we have decent roads to carry us from point A to point B. Admittedly, we want lots of other things, but few people are willing to give up these essentials to get the other services governments can provide if they have means to do so.

So with that in mind, how is Oregon doing, compared to other state’s, in its ability to fund the “essentials”? The numbers may surprise you.
In funding for public assistance (we used to call it welfare, before that term was deemed demeaning), Oregon ranks 17th in the nation. In funding for corrections, Oregon ranks 20th. In funding higher education, Oregon ranks 23rd. And that’s the good new! In funding for Medicaid, Oregon ranks 42nd. In funding for elementary and secondary education, Oregon ranks 47th. In funding for transportation, Oregon ranks dead last: 49 of 49 reporting states.

But take heart: we do rank first in the nation in the one remaining category. Oregon has the distinction of outspending all other states in the category of “Other.”

What exactly is in “Other.” Some specific programs are called out later in the report. They include pension payments, health benefits for state employees, public health, mental health, environmental programs, parks and recreation, housing, and general aid to local governments.

Obviously, there is a constituency for all these programs. But how many Oregonians are willing to argue that would shortchange essential funding to educate kids, maintain our roads or bridges or keep our streets safe from crime in order to fund these nice-but-optional programs.

Could the root of our budget problem be that Oregon simply wants too much from its government and that we are having a hard time “cutting the fat” in order to ensure that the “essentials” are funded?

When the legislature convenes in January, I suggest the governor, the 30 dedicated men and women who will sit in the Senate and the dedicated 60 men and women who sit in the House lock themselves in a big room for as long as it takes and go through the exercise of ranking and prioritizing the essential functions of state government. Don’t attach budget numbers. Just decide where roads, schools and police rank in relationship to health, welfare, housing, parks and preserving the environment.

Once you’ve answered that question, cut from the bottom.

When you’ve lived beyond your means for as long as Oregon has, it’s hard to adjust your lifestyle to fit your income. But eventually, the bills catch up with you, and you have to decide what your family priorities are. Those are the rules Oregon tells its citizens they must live by. The State should do not less.

Back To Basics Will Solve Budget Crunch

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
Published in the Central Oregonian, November 2002

With the November general election over, one thing is clear: Oregon voters are in no mood for additional taxes, and the outlook for the income tax measures to be voted on in January is grim. Among legislators gearing up for a January session, the talk has turned increasingly to the question of how best to proceed with budget cuts, which appear increasingly inevitable.

Exactly how the newly elected governor and the legislature are supposed to undertake this task, they don’t seem to know. Everyone seems to agree that preserving funding for schools is a priority, but beyond that, we’ve heard no concrete ideas.

The problem is enormous. If the income tax measures fail, the Legislature will need to identify an additional $482 million in cuts in the state’s budget. That’s on top of the $560 million cut during the last five special sessions. I suppose it could be done easily enough if all the legislators would agree among themselves that none of them are going to run for re-election. But let’s face it: That’s not going to happen. So they need a roadmap to figure out where to go next.

Such a roadmap may well be provided by a report issued this past summer by the National Association of State Budget Officers. The annual report examines how much 49 states (Alaska isn’t included for some reason) spend each year. You can find it yourself on the web at http://www.nasbo.org/. The current report reflects a categorized breakdown of expenditures by state in fiscal year 2001, listing the percentage of each state’s expenditures for education, higher education, public assistance, Medicaid, corrections, transportation and “other.”

In the Oregon column, the source of this state’s budget problem appears pretty quickly.

We make our best showing in the rankings in funding for public assistance (what we used to call welfare, before that term was deemed demeaning). Oregon ranks 17th in the nation in this category. In funding for corrections and higher education, the state ranks about the middle of the pack at 20th and 23rd respectively. Those are the “good” numbers, and then the bottom drops out.

In funding for Medicaid, Oregon ranks 42nd. In funding for elementary and secondary education, Oregon ranks 47th. In transportation, nobody underspends us. Oregon ranks dead last: 49 of 49 reporting states.

These aren’t good measures by any standards, but fortunately, there is one category in which Oregon shines. We Oregonians can take pride in the fact that we rank first in the nation in the one remaining category. Oregon outspends all other states in the category, “Other.”

This category is a catch-all. It includes programs such as pension payments, health benefits for state employees, public health, mental health, environmental programs, parks and recreation, housing, and general aid to local governments. I suspect the reason these kind of expenditures are lumped together is because most people agree that these are not the core functions of state government. Admittedly, we want lots of things from government other than educating our kids, helping the needy, keeping criminals off the streets and maintaining the state’s road network. But these programs generally aren’t considered optional—except maybe in Oregon.

Could the root of our budget problem be that Oregon simply wants too much from its government and that we can’t bring ourselves to cut the fat in order to fund the essentials? Maybe the answer to our budget crisis is to recognize that if we are going to get back on track it will only be when we finally decide to get “back to basics.”

Here’s my suggestion when the legislature convenes in January. The Governor, the Senate and the House leadership need to take a step back and ask themselves: What are the priorities of Oregon (or any state)? Don’t talk about budget numbers just yet. Turn off the cell phones and pagers that allow special interest lobbyists to influence your common sense. Just talk about whether keeping the schools open, the jails operating, the needy fed and the roads clear is more important than funding for just over 48 percent of state programs that fall into the “other” category. I think you’ll find agreement.

Once that’s done, put the rest of the list in priority order. When that’s finished, start cutting from the bottom.

When you’ve lived beyond your means for as long as Oregon has, it’s hard to adjust your lifestyle to fit your income. But the bills have come due. Like any family faced with financial crisis, we have to decide what our priorities are.

These are the rules individual Oregonians must live by. The state should do no less.

Back To Basics Can Solve Budget Crunch

In My Judgment
By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge

With the November general election over, one thing is clear: Oregon voters are in no mood for additional taxes, and the outlook for the income tax measures to be voted on in January is grim. Among legislators gearing up for a January session, the talk has turned increasingly to the question of how best to proceed with budget cuts, which appear increasingly inevitable.

Exactly how the newly elected governor and the legislature are supposed to undertake this task, they don’t seem to know. Everyone seems to agree that preserving funding for schools is a priority, but beyond that, we’ve heard no concrete ideas.

The problem is enormous. If the income tax measures fail, the Legislature will need to identify an additional $482 million in cuts in the state’s budget. That’s on top of the $560 million cut during the last five special sessions. I suppose it could be done easily enough if all the legislators would agree among themselves that none of them are going to run for re-election. But let’s face it: That’s not going to happen. So they need a roadmap to figure out where to go next.

Such a roadmap may well be provided by a report issued this past summer by the National Association of State Budget Officers. The annual report examines how much 49 states (Alaska isn’t included for some reason) spend each year. You can find it yourself on the web at www.nasbo.org. The current report reflects a categorized breakdown of expenditures by state in fiscal year 2001, listing the percentage of each state’s expenditures for education, higher education, public assistance, Medicaid, corrections, transportation and “other.”

In the Oregon column, the source of this state’s budget problem appears pretty quickly.

We make our best showing in the rankings in funding for public assistance (what we used to call welfare, before that term was deemed demeaning). Oregon ranks 17th in the nation in this category. In funding for corrections and higher education, the state ranks about the middle of the pack at 20th and 23rd respectively. Those are the “good” numbers, and then the bottom drops out.

In funding for Medicaid, Oregon ranks 42nd. In funding for elementary and secondary education, Oregon ranks 47th. In transportation, nobody underspends us. Oregon ranks dead last: 49 of 49 reporting states.

These aren’t good measures by any standards, but fortunately, there is one category in which Oregon shines. We Oregonians can take pride in the fact that we rank first in the nation in the one remaining category. Oregon outspends all other states in the category, “Other.”

This category is a catch-all. It includes programs such as pension payments, health benefits for state employees, public health, mental health, environmental programs, parks and recreation, housing, and general aid to local governments. I suspect the reason these kind of expenditures are lumped together is because most people agree that these are not the core functions of state government. Admittedly, we want lots of things from government other than educating our kids, helping the needy, keeping criminals off the streets and maintaining the state’s road network. But these programs generally aren’t considered optional—except maybe in Oregon.

Could the root of our budget problem be that Oregon simply wants too much from its government and that we can’t bring ourselves to cut the fat in order to fund the essentials? Maybe the answer to our budget crisis is to recognize that if we are going to get back on track it will only be when we finally decide to get “back to basics.”

Here’s my suggestion when the legislature convenes in January. The Governor, the Senate and the House leadership need to take a step back and ask themselves: What are the priorities of Oregon (or any state)? Don’t talk about budget numbers just yet. Turn off the cell phones and pagers that allow special interest lobbyists to influence your common sense. Just talk about whether keeping the schools open, the jails operating, the needy fed and the roads clear is more important than funding for just over 48 percent of state programs that fall into the “other” category. I think you’ll find agreement.

Once that’s done, put the rest of the list in priority order. When that’s finished, start cutting from the bottom.

When you’ve lived beyond your means for as long as Oregon has, it’s hard to adjust your lifestyle to fit your income. But the bills have come due. Like any family faced with financial crisis, we have to decide what our priorities are.

These are the rules individual Oregonians must live by. The state should do no less.

Get Back To Basics To Solve Budget Crunch

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
published in the Central Oregonian, November 2002
http://www.centraloregonian.com

With the November general election over, one thing is clear: Oregon voters are in no mood for additional taxes, and the outlook for the income tax measures to be voted on in January is grim. Among legislators gearing up for a January session, the talk has turned increasingly to the question of how best to proceed with budget cuts, which appear increasingly inevitable.

Exactly how the newly elected governor and the legislature are supposed to undertake this task, they don’t seem to know. Everyone seems to agree that preserving funding for schools is a priority, but beyond that, we’ve heard no concrete ideas.

The problem is enormous. If the income tax measures fail, the Legislature will need to identify an additional $482 million in cuts in the state’s budget. That’s on top of the $560 million cut during the last five special sessions. I suppose it could be done easily enough if all the legislators would agree among themselves that none of them are going to run for re-election. But let’s face it: That’s not going to happen. So they need a roadmap to figure out where to go next.

Such a roadmap may well be provided by a report issued this past summer by the National Association of State Budget Officers. The annual report examines how much 49 states (Alaska isn’t included for some reason) spend each year. You can find it yourself on the web at www.nasbo.org. The current report reflects a categorized breakdown of expenditures by state in fiscal year 2001, listing the percentage of each state’s expenditures for education, higher education, public assistance, Medicaid, corrections, transportation and “other.”

In the Oregon column, the source of this state’s budget problem appears pretty quickly.

We make our best showing in the rankings in funding for public assistance (what we used to call welfare, before that term was deemed demeaning). Oregon ranks 17th in the nation in this category. In funding for corrections and higher education, the state ranks about the middle of the pack at 20th and 23rd respectively. Those are the “good” numbers, and then the bottom drops out.

In funding for Medicaid, Oregon ranks 42nd. In funding for elementary and secondary education, Oregon ranks 47th. In transportation, nobody underspends us. Oregon ranks dead last: 49 of 49 reporting states.

These aren’t good measures by any standards, but fortunately, there is one category in which Oregon shines. We Oregonians can take pride in the fact that we rank first in the nation in the one remaining category. Oregon outspends all other states in the category, “Other.”

This category is a catch-all. It includes programs such as pension payments, health benefits for state employees, public health, mental health, environmental programs, parks and recreation, housing, and general aid to local governments. I suspect the reason these kind of expenditures are lumped together is because most people agree that these are not the core functions of state government. Admittedly, we want lots of things from government other than educating our kids, helping the needy, keeping criminals off the streets and maintaining the state’s road network. But these programs generally aren’t considered optional—except maybe in Oregon.

Could the root of our budget problem be that Oregon simply wants too much from its government and that we can’t bring ourselves to cut the fat in order to fund the essentials? Maybe the answer to our budget crisis is to recognize that if we are going to get back on track it will only be when we finally decide to get “back to basics.”

Here’s my suggestion when the legislature convenes in January. The Governor, the Senate and the House leadership need to take a step back and ask themselves: What are the priorities of Oregon (or any state)? Don’t talk about budget numbers just yet. Turn off the cell phones and pagers that allow special interest lobbyists to influence your common sense. Just talk about whether keeping the schools open, the jails operating, the needy fed and the roads clear is more important than funding for just over 48 percent of state programs that fall into the “other” category. I think you’ll find agreement.

Once that’s done, put the rest of the list in priority order. When that’s finished, start cutting from the bottom.

When you’ve lived beyond your means for as long as Oregon has, it’s hard to adjust your lifestyle to fit your income. But the bills have come due. Like any family faced with financial crisis, we have to decide what our priorities are.

These are the rules individual Oregonians must live by. The state should do no less.

An Open Letter To the Commissioner-Elect

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
Published in the Powell Butte View, November 2002

At 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, polls will close in Crook County, and someone will become the county commissioner-elect. It was just two years ago that I was in this position, but I have learned much in those two years, and I thought I would take a few moments to share some of those lessons with my new colleague:

Be careful what you wish for: Every judge and commissioner comes into office with the idea that he or she is going to change things for the better. He or she is going to right all the wrongs of the previous administration as he perceives them, often in a couple of months. To a limited degree, you can make change as a county commissioner. There is always opportunity to do things better in government. Nearly 200 people work for you performing 23 separate functions. You are trying to monitor the expenditure of nearly $40 million. You serve 20,000 constituents scattered across nearly 3000 square miles, each of whom has some particular expectation or requirement. In an organization of this size and complexity, some things slip through the cracks, and if you look hard enough, you will find little irritants and problems and situations that can be made better for employees, taxpayers and constituents alike. Just keep in mind that the government apparatus has limited capacity to deal with issues. The number of issues demanding your attention far exceeds your ability to give adequate attention to them all, especially considering that you have to work for a living, respond to your constituents and meet the ordinary demands of a spouse, parent, child and friend. In addition, the government apparatus must carry out its day-to-day functions serving people and performing its mandated functions, and it cannot drop everything else to address your specific interest. Finally, bear in mind that every time you want to make a change, there are hours of unseen effort put in by other people involved in preparing to present the new way of doing things and communicating and explaining it to staff and external customers—hours which will necessarily be taken away from other work. So when you set out to implement your change agenda—which is certainly your responsibility—be careful to pace yourself and to consider fully each time you propose a change whether this change will make a significant enough difference to the people of Crook County to warrant the effort and energy it will take away from other areas of county concern.

Consistency IS a virtue: Somewhere in our careers, many of us encountered the axiom “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” In professional development seminars, we are urged to “Think outside the box,” which can be another way of saying the same thing. On the surface this sounds like a great idea. Doing things the way they have always been done seems like a sure-fire way to ensure the continuation of stodgy, unresponsive government more committed to its processes than to the people it is supposed to serve. But the truth is, this is government, not business. Business’ job is to build the better mousetrap and make the world a better place for its clients. Government’s job is to do the same thing for everyone. A government doesn’t have the luxury of serving just the constituents it likes. It must serve everyone. When it works well, government provides a forum where all ideas and points of view, including unpopular ones, receive due consideration and where everyone, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or weak, exciting or dull, receives the same treatment. Elected officials are naturally pulled in the direction of using the government to help the people who put you in office or who share your views—in fact some of them will demand you do so, some more boldly than others. Doing so will inevitably get you in trouble. Everyone is served best by a government which consistently applies the rules to all people the same way all the time. Any business or land owner can tell you that the greatest challenge to his or her ability to succeed is not the nature of regulation, but the ability to anticipate the future. One can plan around even the most stringent rules, if there is fair warning of what the rules are, a certainty that they apply to everyone and plenty of advance warning that they are going to change. To the degree that you can honor peoples’ need for consistency on the part of government, Mr. Commissioner, you will help make a better, more responsive government.

You can’t pick and choose your laws: On January 2, you will put your hand in the air and take an oath to uphold and support the laws and constitutions of the State of Oregon and the United States of America. When you do so, you will be committing yourself to follow all the laws—not just the ones you like. This may seem like an obvious point, but you are going to find that a lot of people are going to ask you over the course of your career in government to simply look the other way when certain local, state and federal laws get in the way of their particular private interests. In the name of efficiency and saving a few pennies or in the name of supporting “local business,” you will be pressured to ignore laws related to fair competition. Those pressuring you will not remember that the laws are designed to ensure that every business that pays taxes has equal opportunity to receive a portion of those taxes back again and that about two-thirds of the dollars you are charged with expending were received not from taxpayers of Crook County, but from taxpayers in the rest of the state and nation. In furtherance of “economic development” and “job creation,” you will be asked to overlook land use laws, building codes and health and safety regulations. Those asking you will be concerned about furthering their own fortunes, not ensuring the welfare of their neighbors, customers and employees. Just remember that if you give in to them, when you are later asked why you didn’t take steps to preserve farmland or open space or why you allowed views to be destroyed or why unsafe buildings or situations were permitted on your watch, the people that asked you to do them this favor will not be standing up in support of you—in fact, they may well be the people in the forefront of the crowd hurling the stones.

It’s all about tomorrow: I suppose the most important lesson that a county judge or commissioner has to learn is to accept that majority rules and unless you completely abdicate your judgment, you’re not always going to be in the majority. Disagreement among elected officials is healthy and should be encouraged. We are all elected, sometimes through the support of different constituencies, to bring our unique points of view to the table. We will not always agree with each other, and sometimes we will have to agree to disagree, reflecting in our split vote a split within our community. But at the close of each Court meeting, we must bear in mind that the next meeting is just a week or so away. It will bring new opportunities to collaborate or to disagree, and in the end no one is served if grudges are nursed or resentment is harbored from meeting to meeting. Politics is always about tomorrow, not yesterday. You will best serve yourself by always voting your true conscience and furthering an environment of mutual respect and looking constantly for the opportunity to build bridges to fellow commissioners which can be crossed together when the next battle comes along.

Serving your county is a wonderful opportunity. I wish you the very best in the next four years.

Sincerely,


Scott R. Cooper
Crook County Judge