Analysis: No easy way to cut

ATLANTA -- More than one creepy thriller has included a scene in which the villain tries to force someone to choose between losing a spouse or a child. Cutting the budget at some Georgia social-service agencies almost recreates that scenario.

For example, B.J. Walker, commissioner of the Department of Human Resources, told members of the Appropriations Committees recently that the aim of many programs at her agency is to prevent suffering and possibly greater taxpayer expense through prevention. So, the long-term consequences of this year's budget cuts could be far reaching.

The decision wasn't between cutting some innocuous paper-shuffling bureaucracy or one of these pre-emptive services, she said. It was between competing preventive measures.

"No matter where I cut something, it's going to be something that could prevent something worse," she told the lawmakers. "I didn't have any good choices."

Gov. Sonny Perdue has already forced agencies to play that scene from the thriller movies, and now legislators are calling for a re-enactment.

Adding to the drama is the fact that the Republicans running the state for the last six years haven't been shy about making claims of fiscal prudence and reducing the real, per-person tax rate. The irony is that, if their claims are true, then the only cuts left to make are in those remaining substantive, beneficial services.

Ms. Walker told lawmakers that the Department of Human Resources will be cutting jobs: 45 from administration, 65 from Child Support Recovery, four from Aging, and not replacing more than 900 case workers from the Division of Family and Children's Services -- the welfare agency.

The Department of Community Health is also shedding staff as well as coping with rising demand for services due to growing private unemployment. The unemployment rate has soared so much more since the November rate Mr. Perdue based his budget on that even his plan will now run out of money for Medicaid three weeks before the fiscal year ends, according to that department's commissioner.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, told a group before the session started that he considered efficiency the best source of new revenues rather than tax increases or fees. Squeezing a little more out of each taxpayer dollar already spent by getting more service is his aim.

He's got plenty of reason to seek revenue. Projections that the current year's budget is headed for a deficit of as much as $2.8 billion drives the need for cash from some source. Mr. Perdue worked out a strategy for balancing the budget in the remaining months before the fiscal year ends June 30, but legislators have a few problems with it.

For one, they want to restore $428 million in grants to local governments designed to provide homeowners property-tax relief. Perdue said he couldn't figure out a way to come up with the money, yet legislators have vowed to do it.

"We have said several weeks now our No. 1 goal is to find a way to fund that," said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons Island. "We think we have identified a way to do that. There are going to be some additional cuts in there, but we think it's important enough to the homeowners of this state to honor a commitment we made."

To provide some idea of how big that challenge is, it would take cutting all of the funds for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Forestry Commission, the departments of Insurance, Economic Development and Driver Services as well as the entire legislative and judicial branches to equal $428 million.

"Quite candidly, it's going to be very difficult," said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. "To cut an additional $428 million out of the supplemental budget is not going to be easy. It will require quite significant additional furloughs to facilitate that, the use of one-time reserve funds that have been identified along with additional agency cuts. It's going to be very, very difficult, but it's something we're committed to doing."

Asked if he would support the contention of Chancellor Erroll Davis that the University System of Georgia not furlough its workers to avoid contract disputes and gimmicky savings, Mr. Cagle said there would be no sacred cows.

"To my mind, there are no additional cuts or furloughs that are off the table," he said.

One tactic would be to split the cost over two fiscal years since local governments budget on a calendar-year basis. Still, coming up with even half, or $214 million wouldn't be simple with just five months of spending to work with.

Mr. Perdue's blueprint already called for raiding the state's reserves and draining them to the minimum allowable by law. Other states have borrowed from pension funds and health-insurance trusts -- even employee birthday-and-flower accounts. And he's calling for a new tax of 1.6 percent on the revenues of hospitals and insurance companies and higher speeding fines, ideas the legislature rejects.

The new taxes are how Mr. Perdue closes a $423 million deficit in Community Health's budget.

"This is just a huge amount of money, and you won't be able to close it just with cuts," The Department of Community Health Commissioner Robin Medows told legislative budget writers.

But they're trying to just the same.

Walter Jones is the bureau chief for the Morris News Service and has been covering state politics since 1998. He can be reached at walter.jones@morris.com or (404) 589-8424.