Posts Tagged ‘State Budget’

RELEASE: Independent Candidate for Governor, Eliot Cutler, Proposes “Taxpayer Satisfaction Survey”

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

APRIL 15, 2010
CONTACT: TED O’MEARA
207.699.4401
ted@cutler2010.com

RELEASE: INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR ELIOT CUTLER PROPOSES “TAXPAYER SATISFACTION SURVEY”

PORTLAND, Maine – Independent candidate Eliot Cutler said today that as governor he will institute a “taxpayer satisfaction survey” that Maine taxpayers can complete when they fill out their income tax forms.

“For too long, April 15 has been a one-way street,” Cutler said. “I think it’s time that state government also asked the people who are footing the bill for state programs and services what they think about the way their money is being spent.”

Cutler has stated repeatedly that state government is “too remote, too big, too unfriendly and too expensive.” In announcing his candidacy in December he went on to say: “We pay for too many things that we don’t need or can’t afford, and we pay too much to deliver what we do need. Customer service isn’t always what it should be, either. We need to make fundamental changes, and we need to cut our costs.”

Cutler said his administration will create a simple one-page survey that can be completed online or on paper and returned with a Maine filer’s income tax return. The survey will ask how taxpayers perceive the value of state programs and services, their thoughts on the way state dollars are allocated and spent, and what their top priorities are for state spending.

In addition, the proposed survey asks taxpayers to rate the quality of service they have received from state agencies in the past year and gives them an opportunity to offer general comments about how their tax dollars are being spent and ways to improve state services.

“Successful companies survey their customers regularly because they want to continually improve their products, programs and customer service, “ Cutler said. “That’s a best practice state government can learn from as well. Every year we ask working Maine families to part with their hard earned dollars to support state government; I think it’s only right that we also ask them how we are doing.”

Cutler said that survey results would not be used to dictate state spending, but that the information gleaned from the surveys would help to inform the budget process. He envisions contracting with a Maine research firm through a competitive bidding process to develop the survey and compile the results.

“The relationship between Maine taxpayers and their government is broken,” Cutler said. “I believe that a taxpayer satisfaction survey is an important gesture in restoring that relationship.”

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BLOG: Both Hands on the Wheel

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

Maine’s budget is heading down an icy road toward a steep cliff [see Government VFM here].  Any one of us who learned to drive in Maine winters knows that this is a time when the driver needs to pay close attention to the way ahead and to keep two hands on the wheel.

The hole in the budget for the current biennium is expanding toward triple digit millions – $69 million and counting.  Senator Bill Diamond (D-Windham) and Representative Emily Cain (D-Orono), the chairs of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee, are courageously and responsibly leading their colleagues through the agonizing process of assessing the growing revenue damage and identifying areas where savings can be found.  Quite understandably, no legislator wants to be the first to propose program cuts, reforms or curtailments, and, frankly, no legislator should need to be in that position.  That’s one of the things we hire a governor to do – but the silence from the Blaine House has been deafening.

Strong leadership can make a difference.  All state governments will be operating on the edge for the next several years, but some will be better prepared than others to cope with the budget crisis.

The non-partisan and non-profit Pew Center on the States evaluates the performance of all 50 states on a regular basis. Maine was one of the nine lowest-ranked states in the nation in the most recent, 2008 Pew Center report on overall governance.  Some of the reasons for our low score were what the Pew Center cited as Maine’s past failures to innovate, to measure performance and to wisely budget and manage our money.  For example, compare Maine’s with Utah’s performance in the “Money” category.

Hopefully, our governor will share with the legislature his ideas about how to plug the growing holes in Maine’s budget when he returns from his trip to Spain, Germany and Norway.  It’s time.  Winter’s coming, there’s black ice on the road ahead, and we need both hands on the wheel.

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