Jessica Phelps
District 10 Council Member Marc Whyte went through the city’s budget process for the first time last year and was appalled by what he saw.
The Northeast Side councilman saw it as a process that offered little time or opportunity for genuine scrutiny of city spending. From his perspective, City Manager Erik Walsh delivered a proposed budget (“a mountain of information,” as Whyte put it) to council members in September. They then made miniscule additions and fought among themselves for surplus revenue from CPS Energy.
“It’s crazy to do it like this,” Whyte recently
said on the Express-News’ "Puro Politics" podcast.
Three months ago, Whyte suggested a different approach. In an April council-consideration request, he proposed the city adopt zero-based budgeting, a process that requires each governmental department to start from zero — rather than an existing baseline — and justify each of its
line-item expenses.
It's a strategy that originated in the private sector but was made famous by Jimmy Carter when he made it a key plank in his 1976 presidential campaign platform.
Carter had employed zero-based budgeting during his 1971-75 run as the governor of Georgia.
During his first year as governor, with Georgia’s economy struggling and revenue down, there were widespread projections that the state would face a massive budget shortfall in 1972.
In January 1972, however, Carter submitted a $1.3 billion state budget
that included pay raises for schoolteachers, with no tax increases. He credited zero-based budgeting with helping him cut $27 million in waste out of state spending.
Georgia state Sen. Harry Jackson praised Carter’s approach, saying, “He is budgeting in the manner I try to run my own business. This is a new innovation in state government and a good one.”
Carter found it more difficult to make zero-based budgeting work in the White House, largely because of the scope and scale of the federal bureaucracy. But the concept has merit, particularly at the local level.
It's a way of shaking up the status quo and questioning long-held assumptions.
It’s also a demanding,
time-intensive process. For that reason, Whyte’s proposal gives the city until 2027 to initiate zero-based budgeting and would call for the process to be used only every five years. It would also focus on departments receiving general fund revenues.
Under his plan, those city departments would go before the City Council and attempt to justify each of their
line-item expenses.
“It’s budgeting for results rather than just budgeting to spend money,” Whyte said on "Puro Politics."
It’s also important to note that Whyte isn’t proposing zero-based budgeting as a means to slash city spending. He views it as an opportunity to cut waste and duplication from the
city’s budget and reallocate those funds in ways that could possibly be more beneficial to the city.
The city of Houston attempted zero-based budgeting for its 2021 budget cycle, although it eventually pivoted to the similar but less arduous performance budgeting method.
Whyte said he spoke with then-Houston
Mayor Sylvester Turner and found that zero-based budgeting in Houston had been a laborious process but one that illuminated some rarely considered elements of the budgeting process.
If San Antonio adopts zero-based budgeting, it's important that we approach it with realistic expectations. It’s not going to radically transform the city budget process, and it won’t
necessarily expose massive waste.
Every year would be too onerous, but a zero-based review every five years would enable council members to look under the hood and get a better sense of how the engine of city government functions. That should provide a springboard for fresh perspectives on how City Hall spends our tax dollars at a time when municipal budget challenges loom.
For that reason, the city should adopt Whyte’s proposal.
