California state split?
Comments
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Btw, I work for the State government and in recent weeks, the boss has told us to "burn through" what's left of our budgets by the end of the fiscal year (June 30th). Even if it' pure waste of money. This kind of attitude is pervasive in the department I work in. It's quite sickening, actually.
I can most certainly relate. I worked for the public sector for 22 years, got fed up and joined the private sector doing the same thing I did there for a living. When in the public sector, I gradually rose from "just out of school peon" to setting budgets.
In the latter setting, the cardinal rule was to never leave a dime on the proverbial table at the end of the budget year. You'd never get last year's previous amount rebudgeted, even if the need for those funding levels were paramont if the budget was not spent out.
I carefully budgeted and spent money frugually. At the end of the fiscal year, I would spend left over money on other program areas for any $ that was at my discretion. It was in observance of this reality. The things $ were spent on were on things they needed but could not get through their own process. It bought a lot of good will, as I would need support from these same folks the next year and their support was at their discretion.
I would have rather saved the taxpayers the $, but the downside implication of me doing so for me to adequately function the following year was too dire. So, Danny, I can understand where your boss is coming from. He or she understands these public sector spending realities too. Help him or her out and spend! -
The state of California used to send budget excesses back to the citizens in the form of a tax refund but I guess that wasn't much fun for Sacramento. Much more fun to spend it.____________________________________________________________
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The state of California used to send budget excesses back to the citizens in the form of a tax refund but I guess that wasn't much fun for Sacramento. Much more fun to spend it.
That may have been true. I am not from California, but learned that the realities does not change much from state to state and including the federal sector. Here is how it works in principal:
1. Your agency's money comes from somewhere. We all know that it is ultimately derived from the state tax department or the Internal Revenue Service;
2. Your agency submits an annual budget request to the higher budgeting authority. This is the division of budget or whaterver the equivalent Uncle Sam has in place. This agency is tied to the governor or the President. Whatever the agency gets is what it gets to spend that year.
Here are the rubs:
3. If your agency does not spend out its cash allocation that year, then whatever is not spent out is vulnerable to another agency grabbing from yours the next year. In practice, a state's or federal government does not change all that much from year to year. 3 to 4 percent tops.
The classic argument posed by the other agency is that "so and so could not spend out their $ and we could could have used that extra cash" That argument gets strongly listened to.
4. With #3 as a given framework, if your budget area within an agency does not spend out its cash, then a competing area within your agency will be grabbing elements of your budget the following year ... using the same argument.
Sad to say, these are the mechanics behind how our tax payer dollars get spent. It is not whether or not the money is needed to be spent, the $ goes to who can spend it. Do not get me wrong. The program managers are very good and generally make good use of the $.
The big waste is that the environment is set up such that a pro who may not have needed to spend his/her cash out one year must do so or they will unlikely need the $ to appropriately do their job the following year when a big cash crunch is needed. So, you preserve your budgeting authority, cause if you did the right thing (like leave unspent $ behind), when you really need it it will not be available for you to work with.
Sad to say, this is how public sector money is really spent and an insight as to why expenditures keep increasing over time. People who want to spend all that is really needed gets penalized for doing so by not having the money needed to do so for the job available the following year.
