Bill description: Secretary of state, Fiscal Year 2021 appropriation

Rating: -1

Analysis:

Most state agencies and constitutional offices adhered to the governor’s request to reduce Fiscal Year 2020 budgets by 1% on a one-time basis and FY21 2% on an ongoing basis. Some agencies did both, some did just one of the reductions. 

As a constitutional office, the secretary of state’s office was free to ignore the governor’s request and it did. The lieutenant governor, the treasurer, the governor’s office, and Division of Financial Management took both reductions. The Legislative Services Office took a 1% general fund reduction in FY20 and a 1% one-time base reduction in FY21. 

Base reductions are useful for a number of reasons. Primarily, such reductions force government agencies to identify and eliminate wasteful spending. 

The Legislature has been very supportive of the expensive modernization programs for the secretary of state’s office and it is a reasonable expectation that this office would have made the same modest reductions as most of the other constitutional offices did for the FY20 and FY21 budgets.