Make budget process transparent

As Iowa deals with a state budget mess, state Republicans are making a laudable call for more transparency.

Earlier this month, GOP officials proposed “The Iowa Taxpayer Transparency Act,” which would create databases allowing Iowans to better track state spending. Republicans also want a new office within the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency that would be charged with “analyzing and reviewing programs to gauge their cost and effectiveness, and then recommending to the legislature if the program should continue to be funded.”

It's hard to be against more information and more analysis, although any Iowan who visits the General Assembly's Web site or the state auditor's Web site can find stacks of data on Iowa's budget. The governor's official Web site has a detailed list of recent budget cuts ordered by Gov. Chet Culver. Reams of fiscal information is available to those who want it.

But the real transparency problem isn't in cyberspace. It's in the Legislature itself. The issue isn't that Iowans can't get a look at how money is spent. It's that they often can't see how critical budget decisions are made.

Republicans were less interested in transparency when they controlled both the House and Senate from 1997 to 2005. The role of public budget subcommittee hearings was reduced to sideshow. Legislative leaders and key lawmakers crafted budget proposals behind closed doors. Major spending and tax initiatives were put together in closed-door “working groups.” Budget deals were worked out with Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack in private sessions and often passed before all the details emerged.

Democrats who now control the Legislature have carried on many of these traditions. The budget process continues to be a public show on the outside with all the real work done behind closed doors. Massive appropriations bills are swiftly jammed through in the final hours of legislative sessions with almost no public scrutiny. And thanks to the fact that Iowa's open meetings laws don't apply to lawmakers, public notice is optional.

The notion that simply creating a new Web site or a new office will make this process transparent is commendable but naive.

What really needs to change is the long-held legislative notion that budgeting is a backroom exercise for lawmakers' eyes only.

Lawmakers should recommit to a public budget-making process that is conducted in open subcommittees and committees. Private negotiations are often necessary, but lawmakers should provide Iowans with more information during those talks. Ducking questions and refusing to “negotiate in public” won't cut it.

It also would help if Iowans could get a look at budget bills and have time to comment on them before they pass. That's one place where a Web site could do some real good.