The new budget website unveiled today lives up to expectations. It is a significant advance over past practice, particularly in clarity of design, and puts a huge amount of information a mouse-click away — including an Excel dump right on the front page. Want to know how much we spend on Underground Storage Tank Compliance Standards Enforcement? Click here. That kind of information was available before, but harder to find. Most important, the revised system works and is speedy, which is more than the NYSE can say for its computers. Paper access to the budget also has been restored, as reported earlier. Now we just need to bring the legislature into the 21st century and get similar transparency for proposed legislation, debates, and votes. Let the sun shine in.
Bob makes a great point, and one that will not receive the attention it should. That is the role of the Legislature in this process. Basically what happens is the Governor files H1 every year to great fanfare, new websites, download, press releases, speeches, and on and on. Then the House and Senate arrives in the process. Which anyone who follows the budget knows that they, from this point forward, CONTROL the process!. Of course the Governor has his bully pulpit and the veto but just try to track what happens in the House, Senate, and final GAA. Go to their websites and see if you can find anything. No way, its a disgrace. You want transparency in the budget process? Governor, House, Senate, Conference. One has it the rest don’t. Let’s get it. Put the pressure on.
So you’re saying that this on-line version will not reflect what the final budget looks like? It’ll be out-of-date and useless? Interesting. Maybe instead of expecting the Legislator to post their version, the Governor’s staff could update this one with the changes that the Legislature makes? I’d think the Gov would want to highlight the differences between his budget and the hacked version.
I know; the agreement shocks me, too.
The language is clean. Having several years of funding for the same line item [when possible] is extremely useful. The new search function really works.
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That all being said, this is inning #1.
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Next will be the House Budget…inning #2. About April 28 give or take.
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Then the Amendments to and Amended House Budget. #3 Same week.
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Then the Senate Budget. #4 About May 15, give or take.
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Then the Amended Senate Budget. #5 The following week.
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Then the Conference Committee between House and Senate is created, and issues the Conference Committee Budget #6. Varies – but remember the end of the fiscal year is 6/30/08.
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Some small amount of changes may occur as both houses {House and Senate] vote on the Conference Committee Budget.
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Then a the approved version of the Conference Committee Budget is finally approved and sent to the Governor. #7
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Overtime – vetoes and returns.
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And, of course, supplemental budgets – may line items are deliberately underfunded, as when House One is done, the revenue picture is not as clear as it will be by the time the Senate Budget comes out in May….
I was contemplating how on earth the House and Senate could possibly make their budget sites more like the Governor’s and provide the type of information on http://www.mass.gov/budget. As mentioned in a previous post having the Governors site track the process for them would be a good thing.
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I guess the point I was trying to make was not that the Governor’s Office should pick up their slack, it seems as though it will, it is to expose and at least bring to light the poor transparency in the House and Senate budget system. For years people have railed against the budget process. Well even going back to past budgets, Romney in particular, say what you want about Romney he at least put in online going back to FY03 I believe. So at least one branch has complied. There’s no excuse for the legislature to have not have entered the 21st century, their sites are pathetic.
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One thing to keep in mind, and the above schedule is dead on, is if the House and Senate do not post their material somewhere and in some speedy fashion the information becomes old and stale. I feel bad for the poor Gov intern who is going to have to sit at all the votes in the gallery and keep track. For sure those official journals will not be up on time. Perhaps the Gov’s team of web people could be loaned to the Legislature for a bit (complete with hazard pay of course)?