Like most of the things I write about in this Weekly Letter, there is a part of budgeting that is done outside the public arena. It’s the part where each agency meets on the fourth floor of the Arundel Center with the Budget Office and the County Executive’s Office to determine what will go into our request to the County Council.
I won’t violate tradition and trust by using this letter to leak the details of a budget that is being packaged and printed in the coming days, but I will describe how tensions play out in the process, between education, tax rates, public safety, revenue projections, health and wellness of families and their children, county government’s future fiscal health, and institutional best management practices. One former county executive told me that the key is learning to say no. Another told me to stick with my values.
The Budget Office plays a big role. They painstakingly review past spending by each department and work with their finance people to estimate the cost in the coming year of maintaining services. That’s the departmental base budget. Some departments make my job easy by accepting that as their spending for the year, but most submit supplemental requests.
From the first week of March to the first week of April, my calendar was littered with 42 hours of blocks titled Budget. Department heads and their finance people come into a room with me, their Budget Analyst, the Budget Officer, the Chief Administrative Officer, and the Chief of Staff. Other staff log in via Zoom as needed.
Once we review their base budgets, it’s all about the supplementals. Each comes with a “yes” or “no” recommendation from the Budget Office, but the “yesses" are usually the ones that create a savings or efficiency that can’t be denied. If it’s to improve a service, it’s my call.
I have two large buttons, a green that says “yes” and a red that says “no,” in front of me. Our only rule is that I’m not allowed to tell the agency “yes” or “no” in the meeting, so the buttons are mostly for dramatic effect. When I become too generous, the “yes” button goes missing. One day I came in and it was covered with a sticker that said “no.” Budgeteers are notoriously stingy, except when it comes to donuts and birthday cake.
I’ve realized that instinctively, there is a lens through which I view each request. First, it must improve delivery of a service to even be considered. If it does, I ask myself if it’s a service that improves the quality of peoples’ lives? How many lives? How much improvement? Is there an alternative way to deliver that same improvement? What is the impact on people if we don’t fund the request?
The Budget Office is trying to put a puzzle together and make it balance. I am trying to create a better future for the people of this county. The budget impacts our people, our politics, and our future budgets.
Last week, we had our last “Final Decisions” meeting with the Budget team. I had just agreed to some large investments proposed by the Budget Office that help nobody in the present, but do protect the county against future economic downturns. I had also insisted on investing in some programs that feed, house, and provide health services to some of our most vulnerable families.
I wanted the team to feel good about the investments I’d pushed through, and make a case that they were not only the right thing to do, but also the fiscally responsible thing to do.
So I talked about poverty, intergenerational poverty, and the trauma that goes with it. I reminded them of people who found their way to opportunity because a school, a program, or a better home empowered them. I said that when we fail to deliver those things, and people end up in the pipeline to prison or homelessness or public assistance to get by, we can’t go back and fix it later. We have to invest in children and their families now if they are to become taxpayers later. We have to fund for our future.
That’s what I believe a good budget does, and you can judge after hearing my May 1 Budget Address to the County Council whether we’re getting it done.
Until next week…
Steuart Pittman
Anne Arundel County Executive