Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander is setting up a new office to help him figure out if the state is spending money wisely.
Alexander and his House counterparts have grappled with the state’s plummeting revenues and are facing a $2.7 billion projected spending gap in next year’s budget.

Alexander said he’s willing to pay an expert up to $170,000 a year to provide a detailed analysis of state spending

“I’m going up against lobbyists who can pay a whole lot more than that,” said Alexander, R-Lake Wales. “I need people who can really get into what’s going on here.”

Alexander said he doesn’t have anyone in mind for the job but is hoping to get someone who with expertise in the state’s annual $18 billion spending on Medicaid.

Asked when he plans to bring the new hire on board, Alexander quipped: “Yesterday. I need help tomorrow.”

The “Senate Budget Office” will be “responsible for providing independent analyses of state government agency operations, including overlapping agency jurisdictions and functions, the financial structure of agencies, sources and uses of revenues, expenditure patterns and whether programmatic performance measures exist and are being met,” Senate President Jeff Atwater’s office said in a press release announcing the new office today.

Legislators already have the aid of the Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research, a team of economists that provide long-term revenue projections and estimates the price tag on proposed laws.

And lawmakers have the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability that monitors state agencies, their spending and performance.

“I think folks like me and the legislature need to understand the details of how this money’s being spent so we can exercise our oversight and make sure it’s being spent properly. I don’t think in the past the legislature’s had the tools to fundamentally analyze what’s going on,” Alexander said.

Tags: Florida Senate, J.D. Alexander, Jeff Atwater, state budget

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Jeff Atwater, State Senate, legislature, state agencies, state budget. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.