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For those analysts who prepare budget recommendations, Colorado analysts reported that the
development of budget recommendations is conditioned somewhat by “common policy” set by the
Colorado Joint Budget Committee (JBC), regarding uniform changes in operating costs, health care costs,
and travel expenses as examples. However, comments from all analysts in Colorado seem to indicate that
they are fairly free to provide information and develop their own recommendations independent of any
formal direction from the members of the JBC. This seems to be in stark contrast to the analysts from
Arizona who reported getting direction from the chairs of the appropriations committees when preparing
the budget recommendations. One Arizona analyst responded,” We work closely with the chairs. They
let us know what they want. There will be times that they want certain things in the budget and we
accommodate them. Likewise, another Arizona analyst commented, “We are given direction by the
chairs. During the initial meeting of the subcommittee, we work closely with the chair of the
subcommittee. I inquire about what to focus on and who should be there. If the chair says that he is not
interested in a particular item, then, I don’t put in on the
agenda.”
In an effort to validate the responses of the fiscal analysts, legislators were asked if they give
specific direction to the legislative fiscal analyst in terms of the information provided by the analyst. All
13 legislators responded that they give direction to legislative fiscal analysts. Most of the direction
occurs by asking specific questions of analysts, requesting information in a specific or uniform format,
and providing parameters either verbally during a committee meeting or in written form on how analysts
are to provide information or make certain kinds of budget recommendations. Common responses from
legislators included:
We [appropriations committee] have designed a package of information
that the analysts should use to prepare information for the committee regarding the
review of agency budgets, although over the last five years, not much has changed
in this package. This year we asked that analysts provide more comparative information
such as comparing this year’s budget to prior year and adding more graphs – more visual
information.
Convention