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PRESS RELEASE March 24, 2005 Correction: OFM reforms FTE budget reporting OLYMPIA—The Evergreen Freedom Foundation received a phone call today from the Office of Financial Management (OFM) expressing concern with our recently released Policy Highlighter: Gregoire's "unsustainable" budget. In that piece, we highlighted the information from page 17 of the governor's Proposed 2005-07 Budget Recommendation Summaries that shows a 28 percent increase in the budget for the governor's office and a 21 percent increase in the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in that office. According to OFM, the information found on page 17 of the Budget Recommendation Summaries is correct, but the "increases" are not really increases. This is a result of OFM reforming the way it accounts for FTEs and expenditures in the budget for cabinet-level agencies. In a practice apparently dating back to the Mike Lowry administration, the number of FTEs and total expenditures for cabinet-level agencies have not reflected the actual total number of FTEs employed by those agencies. Called "shared services by agencies," agencies and funds were charged for some of the FTEs working in other agencies. OFM is now crediting each agency with its actual expenses and number of FTEs, ending the practice of placing FTEs actually working in one agency in the balance sheet of another. "We congratulate OFM for instituting this much needed budget accounting reform," said Jason Mercier, budget analyst for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. "Legislators, the media and the public should be able to trust that the budget information reported for agencies accurately reflects the true number of employees and expenses for those agencies." "By providing the budget in a more transparent and accountable manner,
OFM is taking a positive step toward implementing Governor Gregoire's plan
to 'change the culture of state government,'" said Mercier. Contact: Jason Mercier | Budget Research Analyst | 360.956.3482
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1 Part Honesty; 2 Parts Arrogance At a March 23, 2005, House Appropriations hearing on a bill to gut the voter-approved I-601 spending limit, Rep. Jim McIntire (D) asked a supporter of I-601’s two-third supermajority requirement for the legislature to raise taxes the following question: "Can you name a time when we [legislators] have actually not just set it [supermajority requirement] aside by majority vote? I mean, this is in many respects a procedural motion that has no bearing. It’s a statutory constraint that cannot constrain any legislature that chooses as a majority to set it aside . . . have we ever used a supermajority [to raise taxes]?" - Rep. Jim McIntire (D - 46) Despite the arrogance of some state officials, Washington's constitution is clear: "All political power is inherent in the people..." |
