BILL NUMBER:  SB 14
  VETOED	DATE: 10/10/2011




To the Members of the California State Senate:
I am returning Senate Bill 14 without my signature.
This bill is another siren song of budget reform.  It inflicts a "one
size fits all" budget planning process on every state agency and
function -- even functions that aren't actually managed by the state
so long as they receive any "benefit" from it.
The politically expedient course would be to sign this bill and bask
in the pretense that it is some panacea for our budget woes.  But the
hard truth is that this bill will mandate thousands of hours of work
-- at the cost of tens of millions of dollars -- with little chance
of actual improvement.
What California needs is a common sense approach to its budgeting,
something we have been doing for the last year and will continue to
do.  Instead of requiring each and every department, no matter how
big or small or important or not, to develop and track "performance
metrics," "target performance levels" and "desired outcomes," shouldn'
t we first examine whether some of these programs or departments
should exist at all?  And while some programs will clearly benefit
from the performance based budgeting approach outlined in this bill,
for others it will be a costly waste of time. The ideas we offered to
take an approach based on common sense and flexibility were
unfortunately rejected.
I will issue an Executive Order in the upcoming weeks that combines
the good ideas contained in this bill with the practical, tailored
approach that I believe will make an actual difference in the way we
budget and run our government.
Sincerely,

Edmund G. Brown Jr.