Transcript Budget Advocacy - Connecticut Health Policy Project

Budget Advocacy
Advocacy 101 for community organizations
September 13, 2005
Guest: John Clark, Office of State
Comptroller
CT Health Policy Project
www.cthealthpolicy.org
The basics
• Budget reflects our priorities -- not
speeches, not even laws
• $15.3 billion in General Fund for this year
• Growing 8.8% this year
• State fiscal year – July 1 thru June 30 (FY 06
refers to 2005-2006 fiscal year)
• Interest on the debt -- $1.7 billion this year,
11¢ of every state dollar
• Total debt is $12.7 billion, about $3600 per
resident, no. 1 in US in debt/capita
The budget
Where it goes
Medicaid
Where it comes from
21%
(50% reimbursed by fed.s)
Education
20%
Debt service
11%
Health & Hospitals
9%
Corrections
9%
Personal income tax 36%
Sales tax
22%
Federal funds
16%
Business taxes
8%
Licenses, fees
6%
Gambling
4%
Cigarettes
1.6%
Gas tax
3%
Structure of the budget
• Two parts – spending and revenue
• Spending has two parts – appropriations
and bonding (borrowing)
• Technically a two year budget, but they
make so many changes in the off years, it is
really an annual process
• Budget bill and implementers (the devil in the
details)
• Sections and line items not always rational
or very descriptive
The players
• Governor
• Legislative Leaders – Speaker of the House, President of the
Senate, House and Senate Majority Leaders
• Co-Chairs, Appropriations and Finance Committees
• Appropriations Subcommittee Co-Chairs
• Office of Policy & Management (OPM)
• Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA)
• Agency budget analysts, policymakers, legislative liaisons
• Office of the State Comptroller
The process
• Essentially year round
• In fall agencies send current services levels and
“options” to OPM/Gov
• Gov proposes her budget in Feb
• Divided up to Finance and Approp.s, then to
relevant subcommittees
• Hearings by agency, committee meetings
• Subcommittees to comm in Mar/Apr
• Finance and Approp.s reconcile
• Negotiate with Gov
• Pass and budget, she signs – hopefully by the end
of the session
• And take a short breather before it all begins again
Where to begin
• Get your issue on the radar screen early and
strong
• Agency – see if they will include with their budget
to OPM
• Gov and OPM – try to get it into Gov’s proposal
• Build political support early – regular lobbying
• Testify? – hard to get above the noise, dangers of
lumping in with other groups
• Speak to Comm and Subcomm chairs to get it
added to their budget
• Work with OFA, thru friendly leg.s, on fiscal
estimates
Tips
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Generally same tips as for other advocacy
Prepare -- have your #s handy
Clear information – easy to read
Show your work, site sources (after clear info)
Build political support like any other issue – meetings w/
leg.s, calls, letters
Op-Eds and letter to editor very good ways to make your case
Work to keep fiscal estimates reasonable, have more back up
than you think you’ll need
Be available, vigilant, keep in touch with friends in leg. so you
can address issues that arise, your opponents won’t call you
You are in this for the long haul – even if you get the $$ this
year (unlikely in first year), you will have to defend it in the
future
Traps
• Spending cap – “we can’t afford it”
– They find ways around that for what they want
– This is why they get the big money
• “Find me the money somewhere else”
– The divide-and-conquer trap, give up another program or
find savings in your own to pay for it
– When we have found them money (both savings and/or
new money) they used it for other things anyway
• We already tried that
– They will say this even when they know it isn’t true
– Give the reasons that either they didn’t, or this time will
be different
– Very few things work perfectly the first time
Numbers
• DO NOT be intimidated
• The most important pieces of fiscal estimating you already
have – reality and common sense
• Most important part of effective fiscal estimates is making
them understandable but solid
• Most only involves arithmetic
• Just take your time to look over data, check it with last year’s
numbers, etc.
• Persistence in getting data from government, FOI is a critical
tool
• Get help, if you need it, develop relationships, but also
develop the capacity internally
• Share with your champions, let them use it as they see fit (do
not insist on credit, do not publish automatically, only as a
deliberate plan)
Spending Cap
• 28th amendment to CT Constitution, was
the price for passing an income tax
• Limits state spending increase to avg.
increase in CT personal income or inflation
• Denise Merrill was right -- More of a “guide”
than an absolute
• They blow past it when they want to, first
line excuse in saying no to advocates
Rainy Day Fund
• Hedge against bad economic times
• Surpluses must go there first theoretically
• Holds up to 5% of General Fund
appropriations
• Emptied fast to cover declining revenues
• State may need a higher threshold to really
even out cycles and allow better planning –
national avg. is 8%
The art of the fiscal note
• Appendix to bills estimating how much the bill would cost the
state (and municipalities) if passed
• Drafted by OFA
• High fiscal note can kill a bill
• Often very subjective estimates
• Often based (sometimes entirely) on agency input
• Can give input to OFA, generally thru a legislator
• Generally do not share publicly on your website, but deliver
to your champion/messenger
• Do your homework on estimating, show ALL your work, use
credible sources
• Difficult/impossible to change after the note is out
• No one ever checks to see if notes are realistic afterwards,
impolitic and pointless
Federal block grants
• Run through agencies who decide how it
will be divvied up, with legislative approval
• Public hearings, but not well advertised
• e.g. MCH grant
–
–
–
–
from HRSA
$5 million
must be matched with state funding
Services include newborn screening, children
with special health care needs, outreach and
care coordination for at-risk pregnancies, oral
health
Bonding
• State borrowing, supposedly for infrastructure and
long term costs
• Governor proposes, compromise with legislature,
bill passes
• But to be spent (allocated), it must pass the Bond
Commission
• Bond Commission agenda set by OPM – need them
to get a project on the agenda
• To see what gets on the agenda each month, and
what has been funded in the past, check the
Comptroller’s Bond Allocation Database –
fascinating
Resources
• OFA Budget Book
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa/Documents/OFABudget/2005/Book/OpenBook.
htm
• Governor’s budget
http://www.opm.state.ct.us/budget/2006-2007Books/20062007GovBudget.htm
• Comptroller’s Bond Database
http://www.osc.state.ct.us/finance/
For more help and regularly
updated information go to
The Health Advocacy
Toolbox
www.cthealthpolicy.org/toolbox