Posted on February 1, 2010 by Tim Albrecht in News Clips, Press Room
Obradovich: Will you pay for state budget games?
The most important bill of this year’s legislative session is proving to be the wide-ranging government reorganization plan. It could be debated as early as Monday in the Iowa Senate.
Gov. Chet Culver has staked his proposed budget on this effort to find efficiencies and cost savings in the state’s general fund. He took the consultant report he commissioned last year, bundled up all the recommendations, and is counting on saving nearly every penny the consultant projected. His budget includes $341 million in savings, based on those estimates.
Culver made it clear last week that he expects lawmakers to approve a plan to save an estimated $200 million. He’s enacted the rest of the consultant proposals already through an executive order. If lawmakers don’t want to approve some of the ideas, he said, that’s fine but they’ll have to fill the budget holes some other way.
Did you ever play with Silly Putty as a kid? It’s plastic clay that comes in a toy egg. You could press the pink blob on the newspaper, and then stretch the image into all sorts of shapes. These savings estimates are like that. They seem to be set at whatever level is needed to make the budget balance…read the full column HERE!
