Understanding how state government and its budgets work is never an easy task.  But it is a critical component of effective advocacy.

At this moment, advocates, law makers and state officials are all scrambling to make sense of not only the needs of government operations, social service clients, families and delivery systems, but they are also faced with the moving targets of a plummeting tax base, two state funding cycles, two federal funding cycles and a complex federal stimulus package.

The state Ways and Means Committee has almost finished its work in reconfiguring the state budget that will end on June 30 of this year.  Thanks to the federal stimulus package, cuts were tough ($311M) but not drastic.  But there may need to be further cuts in May if fiscal projections get worse.  And then there is the next budget cycle (2009-2011) in which the state will be billions of dollars short of being able to maintain current service levels.

Are there opportunities for new state revenues?  Are there chances to change inefficient or ineffective policies and services?  What should be our priorities?  We're all trying to figure it out.