Whenever questionable percentages pop up, I think of the late, great Tom Snapp, a Fairbanks newspaperman who wrote headlines that grabbed readers by the throat. He plied his trade as editor and publisher of the All-Alaska Weekly decades ago while beating the keys of a manual typewriter into submission.
In 1975, during the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, prostitution arrests soared and Snapp's paper shouted, "Fairbanks Becomes Wild City; Prostitution up 5000 Percent."
No one could skip that story. An ancient version of clickbait. The Los Angeles Times even quoted the headline in a sensational piece about how bad crime had become in Alaska, without mentioning another number — there had been about 30 prostitution arrests in the Wild City over a six-month period.
I mention this because what I have long regarded as the "5,000 percent headline rule" — always check the numbers — came to mind after a legislative subcommittee proudly announced big budget cuts for the Legislature.
A report signed by Rep. Mark Neuman, co-chairman of the House Finance Committee, said House leaders want a legislative budget cut of 12.4 percent, which would be a 16.4 percent reduction from legislative spending in fiscal year 2015.
"The public said, 'We want to see the Legislature reduce their budget,' and we did," said Neuman, who chaired the subcommittee.
Those sound like healthy reductions — bound to be popular with the folks back home — but they do not reflect the real trajectory of legislative spending.
The Legislature is expected to spend $68.8 million on its operations for the fiscal year that ends in June, up from $67.5 million during fiscal year 2015 and $64.3 million in 2014. The employee count hasn't changed much over that period: about 550. Legislative budget cuts proposed for next year are among the smallest in state government.
The subcommittee plan is to spend about $63.5 million in the next fiscal year, which does not include a $4 million bill for renting office space in Anchorage and nearly $1 million now being spent on a new audit program lawmakers want to terminate.
Add $5 million for rent and the audits into the picture and the Legislature would be spending roughly the same amount as this year on salaries, consultants, travel, research, communications and the other ingredients necessary to run a branch of government.
If the Legislature breaks its contract on the Anchorage office lease — which I think would be unethical — the budget cut could be something like 6 percent to 8 percent, depending upon what it does for alternative office space.
This avalanche of numbers is confusing because the Legislature has traditionally taken a liberal approach with its own budget, plugging extra millions into its appropriation just in case it wants to spend more.
The practice of padding its budget with an additional $10 million to $15 million distorts any discussion of budget changes because much of the contingency money never gets spent. In current circumstances, it creates an illusion of budget cuts.
For instance, in fiscal year 2015, the Legislature spent $67.5 million. But the Legislature approved a budget that would have allowed spending $76.9 million. The money the state didn't spend went back to the treasury.
In the current fiscal year the Legislature is on track to spend about $1.3 million more than it did a year ago and return $5.5 million to the state, according to the Legislative Affairs Agency. But lawmakers are willing to say they cut their budget this year because the padding has been trimmed by a couple of million.
"We cut a lot from our budget last year and we'll cut some this year," Sen. Pete Kelly, co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters recently.
For the fiscal year that starts in July, House leaders announced a budget plan to cut the contingency money down to about $1.5 million to $2 million, which is close to reasonable.
The largest reduction in the budget, aside from the temporary removal of the LIO and the audit program, would be a mandatory five-day furlough for all full-time employees, a savings of more than $700,000. There is also a $160,000 reduction in office allowances for members of the House and a $400,000 cut in operating expenses of the state House. All in all, there are about $4 million in real cuts.
This process of setting the legislative budget is flawed because there is no public review process.
The Legislature holds meetings at which executive branch officials have to answer questions and defend their budget plans, but the Legislature develops its numbers in secret and without any external review or questioning.
A public process would help end illusionary budget cuts. The first step is to stop counting money that was never spent.
The whole exercise is like stepping on the bathroom scale while holding a 25-pound bag of dog food. If you put down the Puppy Chow and give yourself credit for shedding 25 pounds, even the dog won't be fooled.
Dermot Cole is a Fairbanks columnist for the Alaska Dispatch News. The views expressed here are his and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.