Brian Solis is a futurist and thought leader in the digital world. He notes a disruptive trend can emerge at any moment out of nowhere that can affect the future of everything—think the Internet, low-cost natural gas or $46-a-barrel oil.
He says there are many in business who follow trends that disrupt markets and then must devise new strategies to be able to compete in those changing markets. It happens in your business, your industry and mine too. But governments and even state budgets are not exempt from disruption. The most recent example is the price of oil, which fell by 50% in a matter of months. So what do we in Louisiana do in the budget realm?
Solis says, “If necessity is the mother of invention, then vision is the father of innovation.” He also says, “Doing something different takes learning something new.” Our answer to the budget conundrum may be in doing something new.
First, we don’t panic and shout “the sky is falling,” creating fear in those potentially affected. The answers won’t come easy, but there are answers. And it is clear to me that we can’t look to maintain the status quo or do things we have always done before. It may require the slaughter of sacred cows.
We should be open to all ideas, even very bold ones to which many say, “We can’t do that.” Why not? We ended the last state charity hospital system in the nation (created by Gov. Huey Long) and moved to a new model—and it’s working better. Change can happen. Sometimes the clock has run out on the old way and it is no longer sustainable or needed.
The Louisiana Association of Business & Industry pointed out recently that the private sector is doing very well. It noted there are more than $100 million in announced projects throughout the state, and that Louisiana soon will set a new record of more than 2 million non-farm jobs.
LABI also points out that our state government has averaged a steady growth over 10 years. The 2004 fiscal year budget was $16.8 billion. Our current budget for this year is $25.6 billion. That’s a $9 billion increase in 10 years, or 54%.
Other states are having challenges as well, and the National Association of State Budget Officers says state spending in fiscal 2014 for the 50 states combined is still below the fiscal 2008 pre-recession peak after accounting for inflation, which indicates state budgets have not fully recovered from the recession.
So as we face the challenge, let’s commit to look forward—not to our past—and use this disruption as a chance to examine all we spend on in state government and make some wise and tough choices. We can get through another storm by focusing on finding innovative solutions and making bold decisions—not just restating the problem. I believe where there is a will, there is a way.
Did ‘The Advocate’ forget something?
The Advocate last year ran a series, “Giving Away Louisiana,” that took a look at economic development incentives and tax breaks for businesses. It makes sense that every government program, which was started at some point in the past under certain circumstances and for a specific reason, should be re-examined to see if it is working as intended and providing benefits to the state and taxpayers.
Questions should be asked: Is the need still there? Is there a return on investment? Is it necessary to be competitive? Have times, the marketplace or even technology changed to allow for alternatives at a lower cost for taxpayers
Accountability is key, and no program is guaranteed to last forever if things change. I believe those in government should treat tax dollars as if they were their own. (If that were the case at the federal level, our country would not be $18 trillion in debt.)
But while The Advocate went on for days with its series targeting many industries—and then editorialized on the subject in a column, “The road to giveaways”—it never seems to mention one particular giveaway or subsidy costing taxpayers millions when alternatives exist. I am referring to legal advertising and public notices in Louisiana’s newspapers.
Maybe the daily just overlooked that—or worse, rationalized that newspapers are special and the notices are needed by the people of Louisiana. (I am sure all these other industries could make their cases as well.)
Legislators know that, during these last few years as business was tight, the newspapers have been at the Capitol lobbying and asking them to change the laws regularly to allow others to “compete”—or feed at the trough.
The Lens reported in 2012 on a bill that “could end The Times-Picayune’s decades-long monopoly on publishing the lucrative mandatory legal notices from public agencies.” That law was changed to allow other papers in New Orleans, such as Gambit, a shot at the $7 million spent in the Big Easy on “legals.”
Then The Times-Picayune got the law changed again the next year when it no longer was a daily. And then the law was changed once more last year at the request of The Advocate’s publisher. The newspapers were down there with the other industries The Advocate wrote about, lobbying to make sure they keep their government subsidy.
The Advocate editorial on giveaways quotes the Legislature’s chief economist, Greg Albrecht, who spoke at the Baton Rouge Press Club on incentives. It said even as budget cuts to colleges and other institutions pile up, “tax breaks for favored businesses ‘are on autopilot.’ The Advocate’s special report outlined some of the big tax breaks, including those for the film industry, oil and gas producers, and other well-connected groups in the Capitol.”
Why didn’t Albrecht or The Advocate mention the well-connected and favored newspapers? While the cost of legal ads and public notices may not involve the big dollars benefiting some industries, they impact both state and local governments. Everything should be on the table.
The fact is, the legal and public notices were something created years ago. But now we have the Internet, and access to such notices is available to almost everyone via a desktop or tablet computer or the phone in their hand. Government agencies could post them on a state or parish website that was searchable, and they could contract with Web hosts, which could include newspapers among the bidders.
The cost of these ads in total is significant, from millions in Orleans Parish alone to $5,000 for the city of Mamou. It adds up.
The Advocate editorial says the tax breaks for favored industries are “not weighed against other state needs, as would be the case for the regular appropriations process.” The same thing could be said for spending on legal and public notices. Would they pass muster against the budget cuts to higher education that the newspapers rail against?
While the Legislature looks at all the giveaways The Advocate outlined, lawmakers need to make sure they don’t forget to put the monopolistic and outdated practice of legal ads and public notices on the table for changes too—even if The Advocate forgot about that multimillion-dollar “giveaway.”
