Recent Developments in the Theory and Practice of State Budgeting

• Author: Freeman Holmer
• Date: 01 September 1961
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400369
• Published date: 01 September 1961
• Subject Matter: Articles

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
STATE BUDGETING
FREEMAN HOLMER
Director, Oregon Department of Finance and Administration
The program or performance budget has sought to transfer attention of
state legislators and executives, as Professor Skipman has noted, from items of
input (objects of expenditure to items of output (program and performance).
Such a transfer of focus is highly useful and is one of the items of unfinished
business in budgetary reform.
While seeking to focus attention on policy issues, the program or per-
formance budget has also provided an added element to the normal tensions
that beset legislative-executive relationships. In its fiscal activity, legislatures
have been confronted by increasingly complex budgets involving expenditures
that have grown by 1,000 per cent in twenty years. In a few short months,
part-time legislators find it nearly impossible to master the complexities of the
policy issues implicit in a state budget.
The natural course has been for legislators to focus on the &dquo;input&dquo; items:
positions, salary scales, out-of-state travel, printing costs-the &dquo;things&dquo; (rather
than the programs) implied by a budget. Legislative recognition that these are
not the crucial aspects of budgetary review has grown in recent years. This
recognition has been reflected in the creation of interim controls by legislative
committees, such as Oregon’s Emergency Board, which is empowered to author-
ize the expenditure of certain conditional appropriations. It is also reflected in
the establishment of permanent legislative staffs, with primary responsibilities
as fiscal advisers to the legislature.
The legislative fiscal officer offers the legislature &dquo;its own&dquo; staff. No longer
must legislators rely only on the fiscal counsel of an executive budget office. They
have an additional -
and less suspect -
source of data and alternatives.
This development may facilitate legislative deliberations by...