A “guest essay” by state Sen. Dan Kotowski in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate touted a new form of government budgeting as a possible solution to the “waste, fraud and mismanagement…[that] allows for unchecked spending and little accountability” in state government (“State finance woes underscores [sic] need for budget reform,” June 3).

No offense, senator, but it looks like the only thing that will reform state government is a complete housecleaning in Springfield, starting with House Speaker Mike “Machiavelli” Madigan, Sen. President John Cullerton, and continuing all the way down the line.  When 8-year old kids run card-table sidewalk lemonade stands better than you elected and appointed officials run our state, it’s time to back up the truck and look for a fresh start because the folks currently down there already have proved themselves to be more problem than solution.

But Sen. Kotowski’s endorsement of Budgeting for Outcomes (“BFO”) piqued our curiosity in the wake of a just-completed City budget process that was better than past efforts but still pretty unsatisfactory.

The unofficial slogan for BFO appears to be: “Delivering results citizens value at a price they are willing to pay,” and its purported virtues are that it starts with a determination of how much money the taxpayers of a particular governmental body are willing to spend on government services during the budget year – and then works backwards to get to that point by ascertaining essential community needs, ranking/prioritizing services and outcomes to meet those needs, setting specific measurable goals linked to funding dollars, and then devising strategies to achieve those goals in the most cost-effective ways.

But that’s just one nut-shell explanation: there are many others, and we encourage you to Google them and read about the BFO experiences to date in places like Fort Collins, CO, Dallas, TX, Savannah, GA and other cities that are trying it.

Whether BFO truly is an innovative way for governmental bodies to operate or just the latest fad remains to be seen.  But just as we previously encouraged the City to seriously consider Zero-Based Budgeting (“ZBB”) as an alternative to the current “incremental” budgeting that simply reinforces and rewards institutionalized expenditures, bad practices and inefficiency, we think BFO deserves similar consideration.

But consideration of such a significant change in how the City budgets and operates should start NOW…not next January when the budget deadline is only four months away.