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Editorial: Government can’t afford to bankroll the niceties

Thu., Sept. 16, 2010

In a $2.5 billion state budget like Idaho’s, $57,000 seems a trifle.

Yet, for lack of that modest sum, Idaho officials this year will sharply constrict a survey that gives social-service agencies, schools and nonprofit organizations valuable information about adolescents and the risks they take.

Mull that for a moment, then turn your attention to Washington state, where new revenue figures that come out today will trigger across-the-board state spending cuts, effective Oct. 1 – cuts that could be 7 percent or more.

Across-the-board cuts are not a desirable way to manage a budget emergency, but the state’s reserve funds are too thin, with nine months of the biennium yet to go, to allow surgical precision. Besides, the Legislature will probably have to pare still another $500,000 when they convene in January, Gov. Chris Gregoire has warned.

Toward that end, lawmakers need to start identifying areas where government can not merely do less but stand down entirely. A state – or a city or county, for that matter – has top-priority obligations that lay first claim on limited public funds. Support for essentials should not be diluted to accommodate lesser efforts, many of which could be undertaken by the private sector.

Consider that $57,000 teen behavior survey in Idaho, only one of dozens, probably hundreds, of small activities that have become the accepted job of government in Idaho, Washington and other places. Were there not, among the nonprofits and other private-sector institutions in Idaho, one or more sympathetic benefactors who would underwrite the survey? For $57,000, it’s not out of the question that devoted advocates could pass the hat.

A simplistic notion? Not really. Government can no longer afford to be the default funder of every desirable but not essential program. Elected policy makers need to streamline government by focusing on core needs and leaving worthwhile wants to an energized civic network.

It won’t be easy, as Gregoire discovered when she tried to begin whittling away many of the state’s extraneous boards and commissions, only to be met by a phalanx of resisters.

Over the years, it has become the norm to convince elected lawmakers they should absorb the nominal cost of enterprises like the Idaho School Climate Survey. It’s time for that appeal to be redirected to the community.

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