Former County Executive Doug Duncan has written a sharply-worded Op-Ed in the Post criticizing state and local leadership. This is sure to make tongues wag. We reprint the piece below.
Where Has All the Vision Gone in Maryland?
Sunday, February 15, 2009; B08
Pity the poor Maryland state or local elected officials facing reelection in 2010. Their response to the fiscal crisis has been reactive and uninspired, and voters are getting angrier by the day. Montgomery County voters recently passed the Ficker amendment, a tax cap measure, as their first salvo.
No one in office today has ever seen anything like the current crisis. The economy is collapsing, tax revenue is in free fall, services must be slashed, job losses are accelerating, and home foreclosures are skyrocketing, and yet our state and local elected officials act as if they've been there and done that. Based on their response so far, we are in a run-of-the-mill recession with recovery just around the corner. So they do what they've always done: Raise taxes here, cut around the edges there, raid reserves everywhere, repeat every few months and pray that they get through their next election. No thought is given to rethinking, just going through the familiar drills.
Their one concession to how different these times are is to climb aboard the federal bailout bandwagon and cry "Feds to the rescue, Feds to the rescue!" Difficult decisions don't have to be made in Annapolis because the federal stimulus will plug all the holes in the budget that gambling revenue won't. River Road is washed away by a broken water main, and a Montgomery County Council member blames the federal government because the feds haven't given the county money for WSSC infrastructure maintenance. Far too much faith is being placed in the Obama stimulus package as the solution to every problem, rather than the stopgap measure that it is.
The federal stimulus does give our state and local elected officials more time to adjust to the economic changes, but after the stimulus is gone a very slowly recovering economy will still be there. Fundamental changes must be made at the state and local level to respond to the worst economy since the Great Depression, and the public must be involved in the decisions that are made. First, though, the public has to be informed, honestly and courageously.
Trust and confidence in government need to be restored, and it has to start with an honest accounting about the challenges we face along with a vision of where we want to go. It's time to be truthful to the public and acknowledge that government's capabilities must be reshaped for some time to come. Can state and local elected officials get back to basics by adopting zero-based budgeting and conducting a healthy review of government's core missions and competencies? Can they decide a program is no longer affordable and then cut it entirely out of the budget? Can they get ahead of the revenue forecasts and stop changing budgets every few months? Can they redesign services to face a new economic reality?
For their reelection's sake, they better hope they can, because if they can't, the voters will replace them with others who will.
-- Doug Duncan
Rockville
The writer is former county executive of Montgomery County.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Doug Duncan on Vision in Maryland
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5 comments:
I have to agree with Doug Duncan that the passage of Question B(property tax relief) in November was significant. Ms. Navarro and Mr. Kramer both were strong opponents of Question B, which passed in District 4 by 2,000 votes. Under this charter amendment, one vote can make a difference. It can prevent the council from using our home equity as an ATM, as the council has a history of doing. This past year the council gave us a 13.5% increase in property taxes as a stimulus plan to stimulate their spending. Contrast this with the Obama plan to give new homebuyers a $7,500 tax credit!
Duncan is on the ball. Navarro and Kramer are out of touch big time!
Doug Duncan was a hardworking County Executive and his comments are always welcome in the political and policy arena. I will leave to others, for now, to speculate as to what this means for his electoral interests.
There is some irony to his comments. Here in Montgomery County the operating budget increased by over $1 billion under Duncan's watch. From the moment Leggett got into office, before the economy fully collapsed, he began talking about the budget growth of the "previous administration" being unsustainable.
The idea of reviewing government line by line is good, but Doug Duncan knows how difficult that is to do while in office.
First, zero based budgeting is extremely problematic annually due to the amount of time it takes. It may not be practical to start from scratch with a $4 billion budget every year. Though Duncan may mean doing that once and then moving forward with a new baseline budget annually. Perhaps he is envisioning a zero based budget occurring every few years or so, rather than annually.
Second, every program has a constituency and it is not easy to tell that constituency they are losing their preferred program. At a budget forum a few weeks ago in Bethesda, I saw Ike Leggett ask for recommendations on how to tame the budget for the hard times ahead. Of the twenty or so people who spoke, only one offered a cut (a suggestion that middle schools not play other middle schools in sports). Everyone else sought to protect their own favored spending items.
Strong leadership needs to make these tough choices and propose cuts and reform. I look forward to hearing more from Doug Duncan on what specific reforms he would propose and how he would actually go about executing them.
When Doug Duncan speaks, I listen. But he needs to flesh out these ideas if he wants them to have relevance to current elected officials.
-Marc
Mr. Duncan’s essay is indeed thoughtful and provocative. I hope that in a second installment, he might help the current Executive and Council identify specifically which of the many programs that were added to the budget during his 12 years in office -- when the economy was generally healthy and the size of county government grew explosively -- are “no longer affordable.”
I have tried to eliminate programs of limited utility and wasteful subsidies from the budget over the years, only to be overruled by a majority of my Council colleagues who found it more politically advantageous to attend to the wishes of a well-organized few constituents. An example is free parking at libraries, under which policy all county taxpayers spend $91,000 each year to enable a few library patrons in Rockville and Bethesda to park gratis. I have a bill pending currently that would eliminate the Fire and Rescue Commission, whose members earn $1000 each for every monthly meeting they attend - and some of the meetings only last a half an hour! There are other examples but, frankly, it is too politically controversial to list them right now.
On February 3, the Council held a public hearing to solicit ideas on how to reduce the budget. Less than a dozen people participated, and the savings they suggested amount to less than a million dollars in total – in the face of a budget gap of $450 million for fiscal year 2010. The following week we held a public hearing on the capital budget at which several dozen PTA activists urged spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expedite the modernization and renovation of schools throughout the county.
The reality is that, while we do hear from voices like Mr. Duncan who urge non-specific reductions to the budget, we hear far more often (as Mr. Duncan knows better than anyone) from constituents who want to increase spending on programs they favor.
Let us see whether this year’s budget debate, at a time of economic crisis, will finally provide the urgency we need to adopt budget discipline. I am posting this message knowing full well that Robin Ficker and others will attack me as one of the big spenders. Fine! Let’s hope their responses also suggest specific elements of the budget that can be cut. We need the public to understand and start focusing on the tough choices that we are about to make.
I support the expression of concern by Doug Duncan in the Washington Post letter of 15 February 2009 on "Vision in Maryland". As a strong advocate for quality of life for citizens over economic development for business,
I have actively opposed Montgomery County plans to relocate county facilities to the Webb Tract adjacent to Montgomery Village most recently at the County Council hearing on the budget authorization for design and planning of these relocations.
I have also opposed the Thrust of the Gaitherburg Master Plan for Science City designed to promote a faux urban setting that favors economic development as the replacement for the suburban setting that fosters quality of life for our citizens. I presented "The Citizen's Vision" at the public review held by the Montgomery County Department of Planning.
Throughout all of this, a concern that transcends the issues themselves is the behavior and practice of Montgomery County staffers who take care to eliminate any transparency, who view citizens as obstacles and citizen input as attacks, and whose engagement with citizens is guarded and manipulative. One staffer visibly recoiled when I referred to her as public servant.
I agree we need a better vision for Montgomery County... where quality of life is the centerpiece.
Best Regards,
Don O'Neill
Montgomery Village
ONeillDon@aol.com
Reading Doug Duncan’s article I was somewhat pleased, He finally gets it. I agree with Mr. Duncan, “Trust and Confidence in Government need to be restored” I also agree that the federal stimulus is only a stop gap measure and we need to do a thorough zero based audit in fact Marilyn Praisner used to say that exact same thing for as long as I can remember. Marilyn also told the Civic Federation there should be staff working on the budget all year rather than a sprint to balance the budget in the last couple months of the fiscal year. Where was this fiscal responsibility when Doug funded the many mega projects during his administration? George Leventhal is right; George challenges Doug on identifying programs that are no longer affordable and some that are simply not performing. The genesis of this crisis has been a long time coming. There needs to be more oversight, accountability, transparency and standards dealing with government spending. As an example one only need look at the lack of oversight the Council has with the MCPS. The Council must rely on the MCPS to be fiscally responsible and work on behalf the interest of the residents in this County. The County Council does not have line item veto on the MCPS budget and members of the Council are not involved with MCPS contract negotiations. I am troubled when I read on your blog that the School board chose to purchase equipment without the necessary supplemental appropriation from the County Council: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2009/090202/20090202_ED01.pdf.
How can they then go back to labor and say they cannot afford their contract?
This is just a symptom of bigger problems bordering on a careless disregard for fiscal responsibility. I am certain the expenditure had merit however there are ways of handling such acquisitions. The County Council funded a one time $698,000.00 pilot program not a 13 million dollar retrofit of two thirds of all secondary classrooms. This Capitol expense not only creates additional needed funds for their purchase but also requires long-term maintenance budgetary commitments. Let us hope that other agencies do not act in a similar fashion.
We are in the grip of a major economic crisis, I am speaking with Council members on this problem and have learned it will be painful, but we will get past this years budget. For the record District 4 will not be represented in this years budget discussion, I suggest any and all candidates should do what I am doing, talk to the sitting members to try and understand how they plan on addressing the 450 million dollar shortfall and where we go from here. Our elected officials should look at this crisis as a wake up call. We cannot continue the same old business as usual form of government. One thing Robin is right about is the homeowner will only stand for so much increased taxation, and I believe that when homeowners realize they are paying more each year for homes worth less than previous years they will hold elected officials accountable. You Deserve Better.
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