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F a m ily F r i e n d s
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Establishing priorities not easy Counties should be one of them
U
nlike Andy Rooney, a man who had the gift of saying so much with so few words, I tend to use so many words and say so little. But please stay with me as we talk about establishing priorities in government. It will seem but “a blink of the eye” and the 2013 General Assembly will be underway and the central focus, as always, will be balancing the state budget. Gov. Mike Beebe will set forth his plan, which will go into the legislative cauldron where much discussion will ensue (we trust the pot will not boil over), aimed at setting the state’s priorities. Establishing the state’s funding priorities will be viewed with varying degrees of depth by those involved. Some will look deep and philosophically in setting priorities — trying to understand the state’s degree of responsibility. Others will reason in a more shallow sense and make decisions without knowledge of responsibility. Sometimes priorities are established based simply on desires and what is important to a person, regardless of the actual responsibility of the state to provide funding based upon constitutional and statutory law. In other words, the small, unimportant things become priority to some. Here’s an unrelated example that makes the point. A century-old building that had served as the priory and primary student residence of a small Catholic college was about to be demolished. As the wrecker’s ball began to strike, I sensed the anxiety and sadness experienced by one of the older monks whose order had founded the college. “This must be difficult to watch, Father,” I said. “The tradition associated with that building and the memories of all the students and monks who lived and worked there … I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.” “It’s worse than that,” the monk replied. “I think I left my iPhone in there.” No one with at least an ounce of intelligence will say it is an easy job. It being establishing priorities and balancing the state budget is a very difficult job and extremely important. There is little, if any, room for the trivial. I would have to surmise that most legislators realize that wrong decisions in setting the priorities can change the course of Arkansas history, and not for the better. Conversely, the right decisions will lay a foundation for Arkansas to emerge from these difficult times as an even stronger state — from state government down to local government and on down to the homes and daily lives of all Arkansans. Some priorities, while possibly important, can be delayed, but others must receive attention now. Government leaders today face a real challenge. There is a lurking attitude among many citizens that government is really not needed for much and the answer to every financial crisis is to simply cut the funding for government or, in other words, cut taxes. Because of this attitude, politicians tend to just focus on cutting spending. While that may make people happy in the short term, it does not put us on the right course for the future. Yes, government must balance its budget, but also must, or at least should, provide a quality level of service to its citizens. And that, of course, takes money. All levels of government — federal, state, county and municipal — are required to provide certain services for their citizens and have a moral obligation to provide others. There are other services that are nice, but not required. They can be provided if the people are willing to pay for them. Here is where prioritization comes in to play. And 20
sesme To me.
as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said centuries ago, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” Establishing priorities has to be exercised at every level of government. But since we are talking about the impending state legislative session let’s discuss state government, which, of course, can have a huge effect on local Eddie A. Jones governments. State government is imGuest Writer portant to every citizen. We recognize that some funding goes to services used by citizens now, but other funding goes to investments in our future and future generations. In my 32 years of experience in government, I have never seen a legislative session that had enough revenue to fund all the wants and very few, if any, that had revenue sufficient to fund all the real needs. Even though the state of Arkansas ended the fiscal year June 30 with a $145.6 million general revenue surplus, that does not mean that every need was funded in the state’s recently closed fiscal year. And it does not mean that the state of Arkansas will automatically have all the revenue they need to fund the fiscal year that they will make appropriations for when they convene January 2013. You see, they already know that they are facing an estimated $400 million shortfall for Medicaid funding due to changes in federal law and funding for Medicaid. That scenario does not bode well for what I know to be another funding shortfall of the state of Arkansas, which is to properly fund county government. I fully understand that counties have the authority to levy certain taxes and fees for county operations. And counties do levy taxes and fees for operations. But counties are civil divisions of the state and are the state’s auxiliaries and instrumentalities in the administration of the state’s government. I am not complaining about the functions counties have to implement and administer for the state because that is one of the reasons Arkansas counties were created. However, we should receive a sufficient state appropriation to cover the expenses of those state-mandated responsibilities. Improvement needs to be made on that front. County government, as an arm of state government, should be given higher priority as state
“D
esires determine o
priorities. Priorit
shape our choices, and choic
”
determine our actions.
COUNTY LINES, SUMMER 2012
