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Senior Analyst, County Information Project In August of this year, the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) sent a survey to the local officials who had assisted with the preparation of fiscal notes for bills of the 81st Legislative Session. In October, the LBB released the findings from its survey in a short report, “Summary of Feedback from Survey on Local Government Fiscal Note Process.” The most welcome part of the report is the open-ended question section, where the LBB lists the respondents’ comments and questions. But the LBB doesn’t just list the comments — the report includes the agency’s response to each. Although the report is only eight pages long, it offers fascinating insight into the thought processes of both the LBB analysts who work with local governments and the local officials who provide the information used by those analysts. Anyone interested in fiscal notes or the legislative process should find the time to review this report in its entirety. In the meantime, the following snippets from the report might pique your interest. In the past, we’ve heard — and voiced — several complaints about the process. These common complaints were reiterated to the LBB through the survey. Here’s a few of those comments, listed in bold, and the LBB’s responses. There is not enough time to respond [to the fiscal note information request]. “Unfortunately, the short turn-around time is a result of the rules established by the legislature and is out of our hands.” “The LBB requests add to our workload; therefore, limited staff are having to do additional research.” While no commenter actually said, verbatim, “We’re too busy to respond,” a number of comments, such as the one above, addressed this issue. The LBB gave the following response: “We are aware that our requests place an additional burden on local governments and try to be sensitive to that. We do not take lightly your generosity of time from you and your staff. We hope, too, that you understand that this process is mutually beneficial as it ensures the LBB has the data it needs to prepare fiscal notes and it ensures the legislature knows how proposed bills will affect your local government entity. Remember, that any time you are too busy to respond, we fully understand. It does help us to know if you are not going to be able to provide data for a particular request, via a quick e-mail (e.g., “Can’t help this time.”), however, so we will know whether we need to make other arrangements to obtain data.” We didn’t get asked to provide information on a bill that was important to our county. “We may have obtained information from another source, or the bill may not have been assigned to the LBB local government analyst. Whenever you are aware of a bill that would have a significant fiscal impact on your local government entity, feel free to submit the information to the LBB local government analysts even if you have not received a request.” LBB didn’t use the data we provided in the fiscal note. The following is only part of the lengthy response to this comment. See the full report for the complete response. “Without knowing the specific bills for which an entity submitted data and for which the fiscal note reported contrary to that data, we can respond to the first issue using only general assumptions. It could be that your information was not received prior to our deadline for submitting the fiscal note or information received from another source indicated no fiscal impact (or no significant fiscal impact) and was explained in a manner that appeared sound to us. We do try to include all responses, even when there is conflicting data; however, there are times when a judgment call is made based on any number of reasons.” “We would prefer that the associations be asked the most often and let them take the lead on responses for local governments.” While this comment has been made to TAC in the past, it has not been heard as often as the preceding comments. I’ve added some additional comments to the LBB’s reply which are included below, noted by inset bullets. “Relying solely on the associations would make our job easier, too; however, there are several reasons we include the individual entities as well,” the LBB report said. Those reasons include the following: 1. “If we relied solely on the associations, we would overtax their resources.” 2. “If we relied solely on the associations, although they are highly regarded by the LBB and legislators, we would appear to be biased in their favor or to be their mouthpiece, whereas the LBB is completely neutral regarding possible fiscal simpact.” • TAC: We try to be an honest broker when putting together costs estimates for bills, but appearances are important. 3. “Not all entities represented by an association always agree with an association’s position. Going directly to several local government bodies gives us broader data.” • TAC: Our statewide cost estimates are based on all responses received. That means if one county says high cost while another says low cost, our statewide estimate will be somewhere in the middle. Since the average may not represent a particular viewpoint about the bill, this has upset some county officials in the past. 4. “The associations have at times responded only to those issues in which they have an interest rather than to all of our inquiries, so we need the locals themselves to augment or to act as a safety net to ensure we receive data.” • TAC: We try to respond to every LBB inquiry, although sometimes our response is that we have no data on which to base a cost estimate. “We do rely more on the associations for highly complex issues because we know they have been following those, studying them, and usually have gathered data already.” • TAC: We get data from anyone we can, often even before the session starts. That has included federal agencies, state agencies, businesses, and non-profit associations both in this state and in others. As a result, we sometimes are able to obtain information not readily available to most counties. “Rather than respond directly to the LBB, my entity’s input will be provided through the association that represents us.” To which the LBB responded, “While that is good, please remember that we do not ask the associations about every bill. Therefore, we may send you a request that has not gone to the association, and if the individual entities do not respond, we will have no local input. If you want to, you could forward requests we send to you to your association just to make sure someone knows to send us something.” TAC will be happy to collect your fiscal impact responses to the LBB on any bill; address them to both timb@county.org and paule@county.org. However, since we are not always contacted by the LBB, please be sure to let us know that your information needs to be forwarded! Otherwise, we may assume the information is being provided as a courtesy copy. For more information, contact Tim Brown, Senior Analyst, County Information Project, at (512) 478-8753. Read the Report Want to read the full results of the LBB survey? Contact Tim Brown, (512) 478-8753, and request a copy of the report. |
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