Washington Business Fall 2019 | Washington Business | Page 41

business backgrounder | taxation
“Citizens deserve smart spending — that
their tax dollars be spent effectively to
accomplish actual, measurable improvements
in public health and safety.”

–Clay Hill
Sen. Christine Rolfes, Chair of the Senate Ways & Means
Committee, drafted a proposed budget that identified $203 million
in cost savings for the 2019-21 budget out of a $52 billion spending
plan. These savings come from three areas: (1) expanded “program
integrity initiatives” in the area of managed care; (2) lowering the
cost of overtime, travel, and equipment within various agencies;
and (3) strengthening performance requirements for managed care
organizations.
The House budget proposal did not provide a public summary of
any savings or program cuts, despite asking the taxpayers for billions
in new taxes.
Surely, there is more that can be done to identify state spending
that is wasteful, inefficient, or no longer in concert with our strongest
priorities. The budget process should have a more systematic
approach to exposing and analyzing the options for cost savings.
Bills to create new programs or enhance existing programs
outnumber bills to abolish ineffective programs 1,000 to one. The
rare bills that propose consolidation or efficiency to save money
often don’t receive a public hearing from the majority party. One
example is Senate Bill 6011, a bipartisan proposal by Sens. Mark
Mullet, D-Issaquah, and John Braun, R-Centralia, which would
have reduced the costs to the state by an estimated $400 million
by reforming the health care benefit of part-time school district
employees. It did not receive a public hearing.
Citizens deserve smart spending — that their tax dollars be spent
effectively to accomplish actual, measurable improvements in
public health and safety. There are certainly a number of tools the
legislature can and should provide citizens to improve their ability
to participate in public debate on the state operating budget, and to
hold state government accountable to a reasonable rate of growth in
the budget.
As lawmakers focus their attention on a supposed need to
rebalance our tax code to work with the modern economy, here are
six ideas to help them at least consider the other side of the coin: the
effectiveness of current spending.
1. give us details
Our state’s “open checkbook” website received a “C” grade from
the Washington Public Interest Research Group and provides
inadequate description and context to be useful in informing citizen
participation in public debate.
Top: AWB added to the conversation during a state tax preferences
hearing at the Capitol in September.
Bottom: Tax expert Rachel Le Mieux speaks during a tax policy event
at Washington State University on July 15. (Photo: Dean Hare/WSU
Photography Services)
Establish a regular user-friendly public report for each agency of
cost drivers that illustrates the costs that are growing over time,
showing the costs of employee compensation, utilities, goods and
services, tort liability and other categories. A spending-side corollary
to the popular Department of Revenue Tax Exemption Report
to summarize key fiscal points and performance metrics about
spending programs for each agency should be our goal.
2. study effectiveness
Establish a Citizen Commission to review and establish performance
measurements of spending programs. This would provide a process
for public input on whether agency programs are accomplishing
their mission at an affordable price to the taxpayer. This would be a
spending-side corollary to the well-established Citizen Commission
on the Performance of Tax Preferences.
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