Bacon's Rebellion

Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Finance

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Commerce and Trade.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Administration.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Judicial Department.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Independent Agencies.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Transportation.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Public Safety.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Health and Human Resources.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Education.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of the Office of Agriculture and Forestry.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of Virginia’s Executive Offices.

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Click here to read the goals and budget of Virgina’s Legislative Department.

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Citizens rarely get a chance to testify before the General Assembly budget committees. But a harmonic convergence of blogs with the new transparency in state budget reporting creates extraordinary opportunities. Now you can poke, prod and dissect the Fiscal 2007/2008 budget and tell the world what you think.

Bacon’s Rebellion will establish a thread for each of the secretariats, plus the groupings of independent and nonstate agencies, then link to the very reader-friendly summaries of each, and invite readers to comment.

Is the state spending too much? Too little? Spending it in the wrong place? Are we squandering funds on useless programs? Are we failing to invest in the future? Let us know.

Christina Nuckols with the Virginian-Pilot is normally a careful reporter but she committed a major gaffe in her coverage of the fourth and final meeting of the Statewide Transportation Analysis and Recommendation Task Force (START), creating the impression that there is more sentiment for a state wide tax increase for transportation than, in fact, there is.

In the Dec. 17, 2005, edition of the Virginian-Pilot, Nuckols wrote:

RICHMOND — A task force of state senators, business leaders and transportation experts agreed Friday that the state needs to increase spending on roads and transit projects by $1 billion a year.

However, the group wrapped up its final meeting without endorsing a specific plan for raising those dollars or reaching agreement on how to spend the money.

Our reporter Bob Burke, who covered the START hearing for the Road to Ruin attended the entire meeting and says that no agreement was reached to raise $1 billion — or any amount for that matter. Earlier today, Burke checked with Neil Menkes with the Senate Finance Committee to make sure he hadn’t overlooked something. Menkes confirmed that the topic was barely discussed and certainly generated no accord on an amount to be raised. A task force hand-out did mention a $1 billion figure as a starting point for debate, Menks said. But task force Chair Charles R. Hawkins, R-Pittsylvania, specifically noted towards the close of the meeting that he would remove the figure from the panel’s final, written product.

Contrary to the impression created by the Virginian-Pilot story, support for a major transportation tax increase in 2006 is collapsing. Although it remains possible that members of the state Senate could submit a bill to raise taxes, the task force appointed to study the subject — and, most likely, the Senate itself — remains divided. The House of Delegates leadership has vowed to oppose any tax increase, and even Gov.-elect Tim Kaine has said he would refuse to support a transportation-related tax hike until a constitutional amendment were passed to protect the transportation trust fund.

Commendable improvements in budget documents have made over the years, making them easier to understand. If you check the 2006 proposed budget, a citizen can review, in detail, the spending plans by secretariat.

The budget includes information about the objectives, customers, and performance of each agency under a secretariat. Increased or new spending is justified.

This new transparency is wonderful, but it is of little use unless citizens look it over with an open mind, evaluating if agencies are really providing appropriate services and if their performance measures are valid and substantive. I would encourage those with some interest or knowledge in a certain area–social services, natural resources, or economic development, for example–take a little time to look over some of the budget documentation in those areas. If no one questions what agencies present, the agencies will inevitably make this budget document a meaningless exercise by rote.

One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve perused a few of the agency materials: “taxpayers” aren’t much of a customer or “stakeholder” for some agencies. I’d argue that the first objective of any agency should be providing value to the taxpayers.