State budget means more than math

The special session is upon us, and the work before the governor and the Legislature is to reach agreement on a budget — a task that escaped them during the 60-day session.

As required by the state constitution, the budget must balance. The state cannot run a deficit (although it can produce a surplus); expenditures cannot exceed revenues. That requirement confronts the Legislature, which is seeking to increase revenues to match expenditures and allow the state to make investments in education, economic development, child and family services, environmental quality and a host of other programs that have a direct and meaningful impact on the quality of life for all New Mexicans. The governor has said she won’t raise revenues and seeks more cuts to the state budget to make it balance.

The fact is, that’s all just table stakes. It is the necessary — but not essential — work of the elected leaders of our state. Because a budget — contrary to everything I said above — is fundamentally not a math problem. To look at it as a simple math problem where revenues match expenditures, is to misunderstand what we, as New Mexicans, need to hold our governor and legislators accountable for.

A budget is three things. If we understand what a budget is for, we can understand how well the governor and the Legislature perform their duties in this special session.

First and foremost, a budget is a moral document. A budget reveals, in ways direct and unmistakable, what we believe in as a state. Where we spend our money reveals what our values are. When the governor line-item vetoed all of the money for higher education and the funding for the Legislature itself, she revealed her values. Her gesture may have been an ill-conceived political gambit, but what it communicated loud and clear is who she is and what she values.

Second, a budget is an aspirational document. Most budgets are built around nondiscretionary spending first. But it is in the discretionary decisions that political leaders get a chance to express their hopes for the future. These dollars are less about spending and more about investing. Putting public resources to work to build statewide highspeed internet isn’t an expenditure, it’s an investment. The same is true of high-quality early childhood education, renewable energy and a number of other initiatives that build for the future. If the moral part of a budget tells us who we are, the aspirational part tells us who we want to be going forward and what investments we will make to take us there.

Third, a budget is a planning document. As a state, we need to set goals and make them clear. For example, our goals should include reducing the number of children who go to bed hungry every night, improving our high school graduation rate, reducing the unemployment rate, creating more and betterpaying jobs, helping more hardworking New Mexicans make it into the middle class and keeping more of our kids right here rather than watching them leave to look for their future. The budget is the document that tells us what those goals are, how we’re going to achieve them and how much progress we’re making. It is an instrument for measurement and accountability, something every taxpaying New Mexican should insist on.

So as we watch the governor and the Legislature come into yet another special session to craft a budget, remember what a budget is — and what it isn’t. It isn’t a math problem. Getting a balanced budget isn’t good enough; it isn’t even the point.

The real purpose of a budget is to produce a document that expresses our values as New Mexicans, sets our aspirations, defines our goals and charts our progress toward achieving those goals.

If we don’t get a budget that does those three things from this special session, we will have witnessed a failure of leadership.