Thursday, February 22, 2007
Management Director Krogmeier Responds to Auditor Vaudt's Review of Budget
(Des Moines) Today, Department of Management Director Charlie Krogmeier responded to Auditor David Vaudt’s review of the Governor’s budget:
STATEMENT FROM CHARLIE KROGMEIER:
I want to thank Auditor Vaudt for acknowledging that we have taken serious steps towards responsible budgeting. The Governor met with the Auditor prior to delivering his Budget Address and appreciated his input and concerns he had regarding past budgeting practices. It is important to point out that this is just the beginning of the budgeting process, and we encourage the Auditor to be a part of this important process.
This Administration takes honest budgeting very seriously. I disagree with some of the Auditor’s concerns and question the reasoning behind some of his numbers. It appears he is comparing apples and oranges and selectively focusing on certain budget items to justify his conclusions.
For instance, the Governor cannot disclose in the budget the figure for the salary adjustment because that would be bargaining in bad faith so long as the State is negotiating its labor contracts with public employees, as it was doing the FY 2008 budget was submitted. The budget did not underfund the salary adjustment.
In addition, in calculating the rate of growth of expenditures, the Auditor is mixing apples and oranges by comparing certain non-General Fund expenditures with the General Fund and by not including certain non-General Fund revenues. Simply put, the Auditor is unfairly adding expenditures while not using his same principles with revenues.
Finally, the Auditor failed to mention that the Governor’s budget fully funds the State’s Reserve Funds, which is an important budgeting objective.