What is so hard about a balanced budget?
The math is supposed to be simple. Know how much money is coming in. Don’t spend more than that.
But let’s be honest. That can be a challenge for a family of four. It doesn’t get easier when you are talking about a government responsible for thousands — or millions — of people.
In reality, it is never that clean.
We see it everywhere, every year.
The federal government is constantly coming to blows over budgets and fiscal cliffs. Just ask Transportation Security Administration employees who just missed another paycheck Friday. Pennsylvania’s inability to pass a budget on time — even when there is a surplus — is legendary.
Counties weigh tapping reserves or raising taxes. School districts try to build budgets while guessing what support will come from upstream.
The city is coming to terms with its most recent spending plan — a budget that may fall short of its needs by as much as $40 million.
Mayor Corey O’Connor — who inherited the Swiss-cheese budget from predecessor Ed Gainey — sent council a series of proposed budget amendments this week that would add about $28 million. That comes in addition to cost cutting, and raiding surpluses and trust funds. And let’s not forget the 20% property tax increase council passed last year.
The problem isn’t just the gap. Pittsburgh’s budget is closer to upside down than balanced.
Some of the city’s regular, recurring costs are not counted as expenses in the operating budget. Instead, they are labeled as “transfers” and paid using surplus or reserve funds.
They are real costs. They are paid every year. They just aren’t counted the same way.
That kind of flexibility exists in many budgets. But there is a difference between managing costs and moving them out of view.
This isn’t just a Pittsburgh problem. The city’s woes are emblematic of a wider issue with government budgeting.
Balancing a budget is difficult even when every number is clear and every cost is counted. Given the hefty amount of debt carried by most governments, it’s almost a fiction. When some of those numbers are obscured or shifted, it doesn’t just complicate the process. It tilts it.
It is important to see money as money — not as a spreadsheet or a list of accounts. Transparency isn’t just about making things visible in a Right to Know request. It’s about making the point — how much is coming in and going out — plain.
It is the same principle people run into at the kitchen table. Streamline. Put the credit cards in a drawer. Use cash whenever possible, because handing over those greenbacks makes the money real in a way a swipe never does.
If the numbers are incomplete, the balance is, too.
