Editorial: Watch who is keeping score

Washington legislators depend on the state’s executive agencies to prepare hundreds of fiscal notes estimating the cost of proposed legislation. They may decide to bring the work in-house.

That is not a small thing, and the bulk of the bill’s language suggests why: The lawmakers want numbers that take into account the possible fiscal benefits of program changes that might look less promising if measured as they are now.

So-called dynamic fiscal impact statements, for example, might suggest redirecting youth offenders into skills programs that not only eliminate the cost of their incarceration, they produce workers who avoid further trouble and pay taxes themselves.

That’s a great story – if it plays out that way. Another example: Whether infrastructure investments will result in greater economic activity, which helps repay their cost.

Critics say dynamic estimates can include so many variables they yield less information, not more. In the case of the federal budget, one study comparing two proposed balanced budgets using dynamic and “static” scoring yielded results hundreds of billions of dollars apart.

But for legislators exploring every cost-saving measure, new math could be a lifesaver. The opportunity was too much for Republicans in Washington, D.C., who under new Speaker Paul Ryan ordered the respected Congressional Budget Office to use dynamic estimates in its 10-year budget outlook.

It didn’t help much, for fiscal 2016 anyway: The federal government will be $544 billion in the red.

In Olympia, they are at least taking a go-slow approach under HB2830 and SB5915, the latter of which passed unanimously last year. The House version stalled.

The bills would require dynamic estimates that account for behavioral changes if they move the budget needle up or down $10 million. The estimates would be a must for spending associated with corrections, child welfare and mental health.

Any revenue proposal would have to be submitted 60 days before a legislative session begins by a member of either the House or Senate ways and means committees.

The bills also call for formation of a work group to study whether a nonpartisan agency should be created to prepare fiscal notes for the Legislature, and if the Washington State Institute for Public Policy might become that agency.

The institute already prepares studies for the Legislature on topics such as the outcomes of marijuana legislation.

It makes sense to take out of executive agency hands sole responsibility for self-evaluating the impact new legislation might have internally. The estimates might not take the external effects into account at all.

But lawmakers should beware they do not replace possible agency bias with their own when legislation is a priority of one party or the other. In Washington, D.C., dynamic scoring could jeopardize the reputation for even-handedness established by the Congressional Budget Office since it was created in 1974.

If the Legislature adopts that model, the state Office of Financial Management should continue working with executive agencies on old-school budgeting.