This past budget cycle and the current economic downturn have shown a greater need for fiscal responsibility and transparency within state government.  I’ve received a considerable number of comments from my constituents questioning the way Madison is currently conducting business because it doesn’t align with the average Wisconsin family or Main Street business’s way of budgeting.

Based on the clear need for a better way of doing business in Madison, I am in the process of introducing the “Sunshine Budgeting Act” that will accomplish the following:

1. Restore state agency accountability through agency audits
2. Establish a segregated lockbox systemCreate a results-based budgeting method
3. Create a results-based budgeting method

When I traveled to Minnesota this past March, my mission was to gain details on their state government’s performance-based budgeting method.  After the Department of Natural Resources budget chair, Representative Jean Wagenius, briefed me on the process, I was intrigued.  Each department has a separate budget which allocates dollars by essentially starting from scratch and funding programs based on highest priorities.   This technique forces agencies to review every program based on their outcomes and fund them accordingly. After my visit with Minnesota legislators, I was convinced that Wisconsin’s budgeting process could be improved.

The results or outcome-based budgeting technique that I am proposing will require budget decisions to focus on results and outcomes, through a system of monitoring, measuring and evaluating where tax dollars are being spent.  Legislators in Madison cannot forget that the money they’re spending is not their money. Taxpayers entrust us with their dollars and legislators have an obligation to know where their money is going and if it is a wise use of their money.  Results-based budgeting creates the required transparency and accountability that taxpayers are calling for.

Additionally, the “Sunshine Budgeting Act” would require that agency accountability be implemented through the re-instatement of agency audits.  Language added to the 2004-2005 State Budget created a system of tracking how agencies spend tax dollars.  This language was removed in the 2009-2010 Budget.  Re-instating this system of tracking ensures transparency and allows review of older programs which may no longer by necessary.

Furthermore, the budget bill just signed by Governor Doyle contained an unsustainable amount of bonding leading to credit card spending.  But paying for the present by borrowing from the future is not a sound budgeting technique.  In the long run, this creates additional hardship on our state’s economic infrastructure and increases tax demands.  A segregated lockbox system will require a supermajority vote in order to use segregated funds and will limit the use of segregated funds during economic downturns.

The final draft of the “Sunshine Budgeting Act” will be completed within the next month and in the meantime, I will be garnering support from my Republican and Democratic colleagues in order for this legislation to receive ample review from both parties. The people who voted us in have made their concerns known and this legislation is a direct reply to their questions – Madison needs a better way to conduct business.