With the continuous talk about the state budget negotiations, I sent the following email off to Sacramento a few months ago . . . No Poof yet.

Are there any small business people working with politicians to redo this budget? Businesses are constantly faced with our own crisis’s caused by changes in the business environment, regulations, etc. . . Many many business people have the experience in cutting with kindness. (AKA- transitioning into cuts in pay, staff, and benefits.) Not tapping into these resources would be a shame and I for one would feel much better knowing that someone who is not paid by the state, who has business background, is actively engaged in the process.

How about the Small Business Advisory group that was started by the governor? I hear it is a nice lunch, at best. There are only a handful of business people and the rest are lobbyist or association executives. As well meaning as these types are, they are speaking with third hand knowledge. Their paycheck is determined by dues or fees and if there are budget shortfalls, then dues can be increased (sounds like government and taxes to me!) Why isn’t a group of business people being asked for insight on how to live within a budget?

According to the Governors own budget summary, we had a balanced budget 10 years ago and we let the dot com boom get to our heads and we spent and spent and spent.

“The surge in revenues resulted in massive – and unsustainable – new spending commitments. ” Source: Governor’s Full Budget Summary 2009-10

To that note, we allow each of the legislators to introduce 30-40 bills per session, every single one COSTS money. I am not talking about the money to run the bills through the process, or the money to create the regulation, nor the money to monitor – or in many cases – fail to monitor compliance. I am talking about the money it costs to change how we operate as individuals, businesses and yes even government.

I don’t have a good handle on, how the back room budget process work. Who is working to improve; reviewing line by line, comparing today to 1998-99 balanced budget and adjusting for inflation, population, etc? Who is working to improve our budget? What are their credentials?

We need to reduce the size of the entitled population and increase the size of the self sustaining members of society. My hope is that there is some office in Sacramento doing this, outside of political maneuvers, there is some office creating a business based budget for the state that can be published before the Politian’s start negotiating. I would love for you to be able to read this and poof, send me a link to monitor the process, so that when I wake up at 4:00 am to start my day, worrying about how my company is going to survive the rest of the year, at least I will be able to see that some really smart people in Sacramento are tackling the state budget and making the same hard decisions I am faced with.

I would love to know who is leading the charge. Is anyone?

Mary Fleet Manager Wall