Jackson Free Press

“There are rich teams, and there are poor teams. Then there’s 50 feet of crap. Then there’s us.”

Playing an Oakland baseball manager, Brad Pitt said this line in the 2011 film, "Money Ball." You can make a parallel between managing the Oakland Athletics and budgeting in the state of Mississippi, says Rep. Toby Barker, R-Hattiesburg.

Barker showed the clip of the film at the Jan. 7 appropriations meeting, in which he and Sen. Terry Burton, R-Newton, explained the procedure the Legislature will now use to create the state budget.

Last year, the state received $1 billion more in requests than the state was able to fund. “There’s really no built-in, ongoing feedback to really evaluate is what we’re spending really working. Is it accomplishing anything?” Barker said.

The new method—performance-based budgeting—requires agencies who receive state funds to submit a strategic, evidence-based plan for how they will use the money to achieve a goal that aligns with a state-wide plan the Legislature will create.

While lawmakers have been talking about performance-based budgeting for years, legislators made it clear at the appropriations meeting that the state is not talking or thinking about using this method, but they will begin to use it this year.

“We’ve been told by the leadership that this will be the process, and this is the beginning of that process,” Burton said.

The performance-based model also requires the state to take inventory on each state agency, screening each program to see if it is evidence-based—if data proves that the formula for funding, and the implementation drives desired results—or if it is “something someone just thought up out in the parking lot one day and decided to make a policy,” Barker said.

The model gives a clear explanation of what the state should receive from each agency from every dollar it spends. The state can then rank programs based on return on investment and take that into consideration while budgeting.