Proposal would force agencies to ‘start over’ with budget every decade

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – An Ohio state house committee heard proposed legislation that would require government agencies every 10 years to  engage in “zero-based” budgeting, starting from scratch to examine programs and spending of tax dollars.

The concept dates back to the 1970s, when former President Jimmy Carter implemented it as governor of Georgia and attempted it on the federal level as president.

“We’ve seen a number of states use various aspects of this,” Greg Lawson, a senior research fellow at The Buckeye Institute, told members of the Ohio House Finance Committee. “A key concept, I think that is so important to this is, ‘How do we think through the additive process of the budget?’” Lawson said. “You’re getting a baseline and the baseline is increased, for the most part, across the board, for all the various line items.”

The current budget process creates a mindset within government agencies that budgets should always increase, year after year, Lawson said. Changing that mindset can be “cumbersome,” he added.

Lawson said the 10-year interval for zero-based budgeting is reasonable because it gives agencies a chance to look back on the results of a decade of taxpayer-funded spending.

“What is the outcome of all of this spending?” he said. “I think that is the philosophical idea that we are trying to get into the minds of people that are putting together budgets. What is the policy outcome that is attached to the dollars here?”

Zero-based budgeting could also open conversations and debate on priorities and whether the tax dollars could be more efficiently if repurposed, Lawson said.

Constantly improving technology can help budget writers as they examine the budget, Lawson added.

Legislators are hoping for more “data driven” decisions on spending, State Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, said.

“I certainly really like this concept,” she said of zero-based budgeting.

Legislators want to know the return on investment of tax dollars before approving appropriations, she said.

“What is working, what is not working?” she said. “Where is the whole aspect of data-driven decisions in this process and should it be more clearly spelled out?”

Within government agencies, there are “silos” of data that can be hard for legislators and the public to access and analyze, Lawson saId.

“That’s one of the reasons I think that technology coming along is going to be something that is very important,” he told legislators. “The data is all over the place, but the hard part is tying it all together.”

Zero-based budgeting would create a catalyst for the government to consolidate data from various agencies, Lawson said.