OUR VIEW: Is a two-year budget cycle right for state?
By The Bakersfield Californian
Here's a ballot initiative worth watching. California Forward, the government reform group that's been instrumental in passing initiatives on redistricting, open primaries and a simple majority vote for budgets, is supporting a measure this year to switch to a two-year state budget cycle. The group donated nearly $1 million last week to a signature drive for the measure, which also received $1.2 million from billionaire Nicolas Berggruen. So why would we drag out the already torturous budgeting of state finances to two years?
California Forward contends that a two-year budget would bring more certainty and stability to the state's economic climate. Furthermore, it would give lawmakers more time to focus on other critical issues affecting the state. The idea is that budgeting would happen and then be done for a two-year period, freeing up time for work on other substantive issues.
The initiative would also require that funding be identified for any new state program, that all bills be published three days prior to voting and that all state programs be reviewed for effectiveness every five years.
On the surface these changes make a lot of sense. The current budgeting process tends to consume all of the Legislature's energy and usually becomes so divisive there is little momentum afterward to get anything else accomplished. A two-year budget does have the potential to bring more civility to the process of state governance. Can a two-year budget cycle really stick? Revenue projections can shift wildly in just a few months' time, forcing legislators to make revisions.
Voters need to ask the same questions and study this issue carefully. But they ought to be intrigued by the possibilities.
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