Results Leadership Group

As printed in the New London Day on 6/7/2009

For a very long time Connecticut has done a poor job of deciding how much tax money to spend on state programs. Typically the General Assembly renews programs each year without any objective review of how effective they are.

In good times, the legislature increases spending to pay for raises and provide for inflation. When professional staff identify unmet needs or problems, the automatic response is to throw more money at the issue. But there is usually no follow-up to determine whether the increased spending is effective.

In hard times, when spending cuts are required, they are equally ill informed. With no good measure as to which programs are effective and which are not, the governor and legislature base cuts on their political priorities, missing the opportunity to eliminate wasteful operations and maintain funding for quality ones.

Rep. Diana Urban, a Democrat representing North Stonington and Stonington, has for several years been the leader of a once small but now growing number of legislators willing to try a fundamentally different approach - results-based accountability (RBA). The concept is to base budget decisions on tangible results.
This newspaper has consistently supported RBA. Up until now, however, the Connecticut legislature has experimented with RBA only on a very small scale. That is about to change.

Confronted with unprecedented budget deficit projections, the General Assembly approved a bill that requires the Program Review and Investigations (PRI) Committee to assess human services programs, which account for among the largest expenditures in the budget, using the RBA method. By January the committee must report to the Appropriations Committee with recommendations on whether to modify or terminate programs and with an evaluation of the results-based method. The state agencies are required to cooperate with the review.

We strongly urge and expect Gov. M. Jodi Rell to sign this pilot program into law. If successful it could radically change the budget process for the better. It won’t solve the current budget crisis, but it could help avert future ones.

Rep. Urban expects the Department of Children and Families will undergo the first review. The DCF mission statement sums up the result the state expects from the money it invests in the department: ?To protect children, improve child and family well-being and support and preserve families.?
Did the $935.4 million invested in the department this year effectively further that mission? If so, what is the evidence? Did the $5.5 million spent on ?Family Preservation Services? really preserve families? Is spending $4.65 million on child abuse and neglect intervention sufficient, effectual or properly targeted? Are other state agencies supporting the work of the DCF, duplicating it or working at cross purposes?

The legislature needs such answers to make the right spending decisions. And when confronted with the facts, lawmakers need the political will to cut ineffective programs and shift spending to successful ones without regard for the cry of the special interests.

RBA is no panacea. Debates will continue, and should, on what is the proper role of government. And determining the effectiveness of social programs will always be more challenging than assessing success in the private sector, where the bottom line is sales and revenue generation.
But if not perfect, it is far better than the thoughtless ritual taxpayers now witness each session. It is time for a change.

As printed in the New London Day on 6/5/2009 by Diana Urban

As Gov. M. Jodi Rell continues to throw barbs at those of us in the legislature, I can’t help but be reminded of the magician admonishing us to ?watch the bouncing ball? in order to perform the sleight of hand necessary to complete the trick.

This continual brouhaha distracts us from the real issues of the budget; specifically the most recent iteration of the governor’s plan to balance it. We can argue endlessly about whether this budget is actually balanced.

Rectifying numbers is particularly elusive in Connecticut because we don’t practice Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP.) We ceased using GAAP in the early 1990s and switched to modified accrual accounting as a way to, quite frankly, fudge the numbers. Not exactly responsible, but nevertheless true.

But given a closer look, the governor’s latest budget is very revealing. There are huge cuts in help for seniors, providers of health care and people trying to get off state assistance and back on the job rolls. Even coverage for eyeglasses is cut. And yet there is $10 million in grant money for our long-suffering farmers. You would think that I, being a longtime advocate for our farmers, would be ecstatic.

Well, I am not, as it is a symptom of all that is wrong. Simply giving these grants to farmers is a short-term fix when what we need is a long-term policy that recognizes the importance of farming to the future of our state. Sure, grants will help some farmers get over the hump and continue to limp along trying to make a living, but it won’t solve the problem.

Getting a foothold in Connecticut

As many know I have been pushing the model of Results Based Accountability (RBA) and have finally gotten a foothold in the General Assembly. If we look at this particular issue from an RBA perspective, the result we would want to achieve with farm-relief funding would be: ?Safe, nutritious food for the people of Connecticut through a network of small economically viable farms.?

Yet I faced fights from the administration as I worked to save 14 raw-milk farmers, representing 5,000 acres of farmland, from going out of business because of suggested new regulations from the Department of Agriculture. I also had to fight them on my bill to allow farmers to produce acidified products such as pickles and salsa in farm kitchens for sale at farmers markets. So the administration is recommending $10 million in grants for farmers, while fighting me as I try to help the farmers stay economically viable.

Witness our dairy farms trying to stay afloat when the consumer is paying on average $3.83 per gallon and the farmer is receiving $1.04 per gallon for milk it cost them $1.60 per gallon to produce. What Connecticut needs is a comprehensive long-term policy that includes fighting for our own marketing order instead of the federal marketing order.