2007
Week 14
April 7, 2007

Hi

The colors and shapes of spring surprise us. We know it is coming, but winter drains our imagination. “Spectacular diversity” surrounds us.

Those are the words from a commentator this week on the variety of persons now in our schools. If we can marvel at spring colors in our yards or delightful flashes in the fish tank at the zoo, perhaps we will see spectacular diversity in the Creator's design.

My Easter thought is a challenge: that we get past the scarcity of Friday to the abundance of Easter. That we get past pessimism that our future is black-and-white bleak. That we get past calling some persons sinners because they are wired differently, or lazy because they are poor, or unwelcome because they have not yet learned English -- or, for that matter, beautiful because they are wealthy. God does good work, beyond our imagination, in all creation.

Last week I marveled at the gifts Nebraska enjoys. We are blessed and a few of those blessings we have developed in a wonderful way. I am proud. As I reflected on the thought, I realized I should come clean on my one big grump about a common public attitude. The legislature and state agencies, at the insistence of the public, has a hypnotic fixation on this year instead of on our long range future. That costs us great sums of money, but worse, it hampers our development.

Thirty years ago, I was one of several who spent full time training our churches to use “Management by Objectives.” There are many congregations in our state which are still alive because they took planning seriously. If you know AND ACCEPT AS A GROUP where you will be ten years from now you know which direction to step this year.

“Strategic Planning” is the new buzz word for it and successful businesses use it all the time. They have a goal in the future, to which intermediate objectives will bring them. They know what to drop now, what to start next year, where to invest, where to sell off. However, in Nebraska we are mostly trying to figure out how to balance the budget this year with a tax decrease, without investment and without a dream of a better future.

Not all agencies. Our Department of Education shows plans and uses phrases that demonstrate they have a strategic plan. Most larger school districts, which are an extension of the legislature, know what is ahead. Our huffing and puffing on water resources is evidence that we are trying to get folks together on a strategic plan. (It also shows how difficult it is.)

This is my seventh year in the chamber. Every year, our Appropriations Committee has asked that Corrections put in a strong drug treatment/mental health program for prison inmates. We store offenders for two years, on average, at (now) $30,000 a year, with little treatment. After their release, since most are mentally ill, we put some of them in residential treatment for over $100,000 a year. We begged for a change, to reduce future taxes as well as to treat mentally ill with more respect. This year, a new warden and good support has brought forth a strategic plan. Wow. Hallelujah. Families of this generation and taxpayers of the next generation will call you blessed.

As I noted previously, over one third of our budget is sent to local governments to hold down property taxes. (Local units can do strategic planning, and often do.) We spend the rest on running the state. Of that, 55% is managed by one agency: Health and Human Services (HHS).

I name them because they are large and typical, not because they are bad. They have good people, under a crunch with too much to do and short on staff to do it, many of them working feverishly to get through this month and this year. I asked a key leader what one large program would look like five years from now... ten years from now? “Senator, we do not know.” I do understand, since the push from the public, from businesses, from the governor's staff -- is to find some savings this year. But at what a loss! Amazingly, we do not hear much about even next year.

One debate can illustrate my frustration. This week we considered a program which would cost $1 million a year and would save us $3 to $10 million in 2 to 3 years. And repeat those savings for every year we invest the preventive dollars on child welfare. (It is to teach new, young, scared parents how to raise a child before they and the child are out of control, and we move in to take the child away from the frustrated parents. We conducted a pilot in two towns and it works miracles.)

We do not have the million dollars. (A business would invest for such a return.) So we asked if we could take from future budgets, which obviously would be greatly reduced, to pay for the prevention. Answer: “No, we do not know what the future holds.” Argh.

Understand, strategic planning is not easy. It takes teachers. Folks, lack of a strategic plan is why your taxes have increased on such huge problems as drug and alcohol abuse, and child abuse -- and why they will go up in the future. There is no way to cut loose from paying those bills if we do not prevent them.

I live in hope. There is Easter. Business volunteers could rescue us.

Our humor this week requires some imagination on your part. Imagine two tedious days of debate on the death penalty, with several senators not allowing Chambers to bring it to a vote. Then, imagine three following days on a bill where Chambers would not allow a vote (to change liability in public parks). Senator Chambers asked a question of our professorial senator from Scottsbluff, who was leaned back in his chair, resting his eyes. He sat up quickly, asked with a dead pan face, “Are we on the death penalty?” Chambers was speechless. One senator said he woke up in the middle of the night, still giggling.

Do not forget spectacular diversity. That is us.

Cheers

Lowen