JACKSON — Those who dismiss Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant’s push to change the state’s budget-making process to a performance-based budget as another election year pander do so by ignoring history in Mississippi.
State officials have been trying vainly to change the state’s antiquated budgeting process for more than eight decades. But it remains perhaps the most impregnable of status quo issues with the Mississippi Legislature — and, frankly, one that Bryant is unlikely to be able to change.
But that certainly doesn’t mean Bryant should give up the fight.
As far back as 1932, the Brookings report identified material weaknesses and structural deficiencies in state government that continue to exist today. But despite then-Gov. Mike Conner’s efforts, the government reorganization effort he touted based on the report died in the Legislature.
Similar efforts by Gov. Fielding Wright in 1950, Gov. John Bell Williams in 1969, the Legislature in 1977 and 1984, Gov. Bill Allain in 1985, the private sector in 1987, Gov. Ray Mabus in 1988, the William Winter Commission in 1993, former State Auditor Steve Patterson in 1993 and the Legislative Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee in 2008 all identified inefficiencies and structural problems in state government — and all resulted in only incremental substantive changes.
Bryant said he launched the 2009 version of comprehensive state government reorganization after being asked to do so by Gov. Haley Barbour. In the 2008 “State of The State” address, Barbour said: “We also must work to find ways to run government smarter. I have asked Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant to lead a task force to root out waste and inefficiency in state government. I am confident we will not only find savings for the taxpayers but also get better performance for our people.”
In 2009, House Education Committee Chairman Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, said such examinations of state government are “appropriate” and “essential.”
Brown said, “If we really want to run government ‘like a business,’ we have to plan the way businesses do. We are too darn reactive. We can do better. It will take leadership from the executive branch because they are the only ones who have the staff, the information and the clout to get it done. The process also needs to be institutionalized — a permanent part of the culture. It seems that we only go through this reorganization effort when there is a budget shortfall. The time to plan for a shortfall is when there is plenty.”
Brown, a financial planner by trade and training, said: “Performance-based budgeting will work only if there are consequences. There have to be rewards for achieving goals and/or penalties for missing them.”
Bryant said the public believes that to be true and that in his travels around the state, he asks audiences if they believe the current state budget system is “efficient and effective” to raise their hands.
Not one hand has gone up, ever, Bryant said.
The current legislative vehicle to implement performance-based budgeting is Senate Bill 2301. Chances are that the measure will — as a similar measure did last year — pass the Senate but die in the House.
But if SB 2301 dies in the House, expect Bryant to spend a lot of time on the political stump between now and the 2011 elections talking about a “three-legged stool” approach to reform that centers on strategic planning, performance-based budgeting and the creation of a performance review agency from existing legislative resources.
