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An Independent Budget Office for NYS

Even if the country wasn't in the early stages of what will probably go down in history as the most serious financial crisis since the great depression, New York State needs an independent budget office. The financial crisis only makes the formation of such an agency that much more crucial.

Yes, creating a new agency will cost taxpayers money. However, the savings that result from the resulting publication of impartial data will far outweigh the cost. Take for example the situation that occurred earlier this year when Albany came close to passing legislation that would have cost taxpayers $500 million dollars in added pension costs because it was relying on the word of the bill's sponsors that the bill was "fiscally neutral".

Under an Independent Budget Office that I would create, every piece of legislation that comes up for a vote in the Legislature that has the potential to cost the taxpayers $1 would be subject to mandatory review by the IBO.

Isn't that what the legislators and their staffs are supposed to do, you might ask? Yes, of course, but those staffers -- as smart and skilled as they are -- are not impartial. That's the problem. And, because they are not, both parties in both houses of the Legislature need their own staffers to advise them on the accuracy of the numbers.

What the taxpayers need is impartial data with which to hold our legislators' collective feet to the fire of fiscal responsibility – something they do not have today. Trying to make sense out of a governor's budget bill when it is presented each January is ten times harder than doing the Sunday New York Times Crossword puzzle. You might be able to figure out a few clues, but it takes an army of experts to understand the total picture. Hopefully, a state IBO would reduce the need for the Leglslature to have so many staffers devoted to reviewing the budget and various legislation which would also help the state finance the IBO.

A NYS Independent Budget Office would also be required to evaluate the governor's budget, issue periodic reports on the state of the state and help legislators craft fiscally responsible legislation. That's not a criticism of the state's division of the budget. The people who work in that agency do a terrific job. However, they work for the governor. Thus how the budget division's work is used is partisan -- i.e., designed to benefit the governor's poiitical party.

I'd like to hear from the "good government" community, academics who follow NYS government and the state's news media about this concept. Do you believe that New York's financial situation would be improved if we had an Independent Budget Office analyzing the data for the legislature and the general public?