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| B- | New York |
• Population (rank): 19,306,183 (3)
• Average per capita income (rank): $28,024 (7)
• Total state spending (rank): $142,853,305,000 (2)
• Spending per capita (rank): $7,399 (5)
• Governor: Eliot Spitzer (D)
• First elected: 11/2006
• Senate: 62 members: 29 D, 33 R
• Term limits: None
• House: 150 members: 108 D, 42 R
• Term limits: None
New York always seems to be on the verge of reforming its fiscal processes. It never quite seems to get there. Budget negotiation became an object of statewide ridicule after 20 budgets in a row failed to meet the annual statutory deadline, mostly because the three individuals who made the decisions — the Senate and Assembly leaders and the governor — had trouble coming to any consensus. A barrage of scorn from the media and citizens finally shamed the leadership into meeting a schedule in each of the past three years. The progress, however, has been more cosmetic than real. Last year, the budget was issued within a few hours of the deadline, but few legislators and virtually no citizens got a chance to read it. Factors such as the actual effectiveness of state programs weren't considered in the debate.
Now some critics are actually longing for the late budgets of years past. "It kind of backfired on those of us who had been advocating for good government," says Erika Rosenberg, of the Center for Governmental Research. Rosenberg and others complain that for Governor Eliot Spitzer, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate President Joseph Bruno, simply meeting the deadline seemed to take precedence over serious discussion of the state's fiscal problems.
Promising reforms were made last year to the revenue-estimating process, including an independent estimate that can be set by the comptroller should the involved parties fail to reach timely agreement. That good idea wasn't tested last time around because an agreement was reached early on. But then the number was haggled over extensively post-"consensus" and eventually ignored.
Even though the budget process seems to proceed without any intelligent use of performance measures, the bureaucracy is slowly stumbling toward a more performance-oriented approach to management. Many state agencies now engage in meaningful strategic planning, and regularly monitor and report on a wide range of performance measures. This is partially due to a Government Reform Initiative created by former Governor George Pataki, and partly the result of a push coming from Spitzer to include cross-agency task forces and a central monthly reporting requirement for key metrics.
Of particular note is momentum coming from the Office for Technology and its newly created Department of Performance Management and Process Improvement. A wide range of stakeholders are now consulted about the state's strategic direction in technology through workshops and interviews, and an online "wiki" tool is being developed to solicit input from the public. The Office for Technology is aggressively overseeing adherence to service-level agreements with agencies, and pushing them to monitor a wide range of IT-related performance measures. Those metrics will soon be electronically accessible across state government, and some of them will be made public. A logical next step, of course, would be adapting that practice to track key statewide metrics unrelated to IT.
The New York Civil Service system is squeezed by its statutory inability to recruit outside government ranks for all but entry-level positions. That's a problem that will likely worsen with the upcoming exodus of retirees. Innovative training programs have helped lower-level employees rise to the challenge, but even the smartest training can only develop a fledgling civil servant so fast. The Governor's Office of Employee Relations took an important step this winter by launching a statewide learning-management system that will keep an important record of the skills, training and competencies held by all state employees. In the absence of meaningful civil service reforms, this centralized approach will be critical in helping the state deploy its workforce in the most strategic way.
For additional data and analysis, go to pewcenteronthestates.org/gpp.