As the country seemed swept up earlier this year in a wave of enthusiasm for "Reinventing Government" — Vice President Al Gore even tried to convert comedian David Letterman into a fan of the cut-federal-waste/improve-federal-efficiency plan — Illinois Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch was reluctant to jump on such a bandwagon.

Dawn Clark Netsch, Illinois Comptroller

Almost always a popular theme for people seeking elected positions at any level, "cutting government down to size" just doesn't fit into Netsch's own campaign rhetoric as she seeks the Democratic nomination for governor of Illinois. "There's a terrible tendency, I think, to not fully acknowledge the cost of government," she says. "Everyone running for office feeds the perception that there's fat and inefficiency in government. You can talk all you want about getting the fat out of government, but it's simply not true and not responsible." That's because government performs so many more services now than it did 20 or 30 years ago, Netsch says. "For government to play a role in child abuse was unheard of until fairly recently," she says. "Now, government has set up a network of people who must report child abuse. People say it's government's fault little Joseph Wallace died. Government today is involved in elderly abuse, job training, spouse abuse ... these used to not be the responsibility of government. "I have a feeling voters and taxpayers are tired of not seeing the truth," she says. "There are so many politicians willing to take the short-term, fashionable approach." For someone like herself, whose career in government has spanned several decades, it doesn't make much sense to look at short-term solutions, Netsch says. She first entered public service nearly 40 years ago as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Julius Hoffman in 1954. She returned to private practice afterwards, but reentered the public arena in 1961 as an aide and legal adviser to Gov. Otto Kemer. She was an elected delegate to the 1970 Constitutional convention, then represented a near north Chicago district in the state Senate from 1973 until she resigned her seat to run for comptroller in 1990.

In her various governmental capacities over those many years, she says, she has had to deal with the consequences of public officials' shortsightedness and penchants for politically expedient routes. "There's a terrible tendency to govern by responding to crises, and that's the thing that probably drives me crazier than anything else," she says. "They're unwilling to look beyond the end of their nose."

Doug Whitley, president of Ameritech-Illinois and former state revenue director under Gov. Jim Edgar, says Netsch's long-term outlook isn't the norm among those in and around state government.

"When she headed the revenue committee in the Senate, oftentimes she found herself the odd man out because she would take a highly principled position and be steamrolled by lobbyists who ... were driven by short-term objectives rather than good, long-term tax policy," says Whitley, who also formerly headed the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois. "She carried a sense of greater, long-term obligations rather than the quick-fix solution, and she takes that tack today. She has a legitimate concern about the state's long-term fiscal condition, and she's correct."

Netsch's record of causes and priorities backs up her claims of looking at things from the long-term perspective. Probably the most obvious example is her tireless campaign against and complaints about the way Illinois has funded its pension systems for public employees. The state is about $13 billion behind in funding obligations to those sys-

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terns. "I find it incredulous that we've passed laws in federal government regarding the way private industry provides retirement programs, then we turn around and treat our state's retirement programs as poorly as we do," Netsch says. "The whole thing makes me mad."

"Long before it was fashionable, she championed full funding of the state pension systems," says state Sen. Penny Severns (D-51, Decatur), who is seeking the Democratic nomination for state comptroller. "I know it's not a sexy issue. But she has recognized better than anyone I know just how fraught with folly our fiscal policies are. And she has been brave enough to offer some solutions for them."

Sen. John Maitland (R-44, Bloomington), who served several years in the Senate with Netsch and now chairs the chamber's Appropriations Committee, also has pushed for better funding of state pensions. "Dawn worked very hard to get that through, and she was successful, which obviously is to her credit," he says. "She's a very committed person and I admire her for it."

As a state senator in 1989, Netsch pushed into law a schedule that would have phased in proper funding for the state's five pension systems. But money never was appropriated to fund it. As comptroller, she has continued to warn about the pension systems' impending huge costs that are going to have to be addressed sooner or later because the state is obligated by its Constitution to pay retiring employees their pensions. In 1993, a group of freshman Republican senators took a stab — without success — at renewing the idea of implementing a schedule to pay pension benefits along with legislation that also would have set up a funding source.

"John Q. Citizen who is not a state employee and will not get a state pension probably isn't that concerned," says state Sen. Gary LaPaille (D-11, Chicago), chairman of the Illinois State Democratic Party. "However, this is a subject that has to be addressed because it does interfere with the economy and budget in Illinois. No, it's not a sexy issue. But it's fast becoming a crisis." Gesturing to his colleagues gathered on the Senate floor for a September special session addressing the Chicago public schools crisis, LaPaille says: "Several years down the road, when we're all out of here, there will be a special session called to debate this pension crisis if nothing is done."

During Netsch's campaign for her current position as state comptroller, she said she would seek legislation to reduce lapse-period spending, which means spending less of a new fiscal year's revenue for the prior year's bills. This year, she pushed for a package of bills that she hoped would reform the budget process and plan ahead to protect the state against future cash flow crises.

One proposal would have created a Balanced Budget Commission. Its sole function would have been to provide a binding balanced budget estimate each fiscal year, which would have limited the amount of money that could be appropriated. Another of her measures would have set aside money in a "rainy day" fund. A portion of monthly net income tax receipts would have gone into the fund, which wouldn't have been allowed to exceed 5 percent of revenue.

Netsch also proposed the Illinois Open Budgets Act, which would have set a format for the state budget and made sure it was comprehensive and accurate by calling for accountability report cards from each state agency. The report cards would have measured the cost of delivering each department's services. She said that doing this would put an end to the practice of depleting year-end cash balances to pay old bills.

"Her knowledge of the fiscal operations of this state are probably better than any of the governors she has served under, and probably better than the budget directors as well," says LaPaille. "If she were elected governor, she would not need any on-the-job training when it comes to the state's economy." He says that while people may not always want to hear the grim fiscal news she reports, "she offers a pretty fair reading of what has gone on here."

"She wants to restore the fiscal health of the state, and if it means you say the t-word, then she says it," LaPaille says. "In her role as revenue chairman of the Senate, she became keenly aware of the numbers and complexities of our state's economy and budget. She also eliminated the sales tax on food and medicine, which was a regressive tax that hit the elderly and lower-income people hard. So her record shows she has cut taxes. Nowadays the numbers would be close to $1 billion if we reinstituted those taxes, so we're talking about $1 billion in tax cuts." Severns says Netsch's detailed knowledge of the state's fiscal needs would benefit government in a host of ways. "In her grasping the fiscal challenges of the state, we'd then be better prepared to tackle adequate funding of education," she says.

With her trademark pageboy haircut and avante garde scarves, she minces her quirky charm with some blunter-than-usual talk

"And having been a part of the legislative process for so long makes her especially able to work within the legislative process to get results. Some could argue that the current governor came from the legislature, but he was here for a very short time and never played a major role — which has helped lead in part to the challenges he's faced."

Along with her reputation as a fiscal expert, Netsch is known for taking the lead on progressive and not-always-popular social issues. As a senator, she fought for the failed Equal Rights Amendment's passage in Illinois and successful efforts to toughen rape laws to protect victims. She was an early backer of "unpaid leave" legislation.

With her trademark pageboy haircut and avante garde scarves, she mixes her quirky charm with some blunter-than-average talk. "She speaks the truth," LaPaille says, "as evi-

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denced by her campaign announcement, in which she said we may need an income tax increase offset by property tax decreases. She feels people need and want the truth, and when we look at the outcome of the Democratic primary we'll see how successful a strategy that was. A year ago, people like Ross Perot and Bill Clinton were fairly successful with those kinds of approaches."

Some would have written off as political suicide her campaign kickoff pronouncement that the state must raise income taxes, even if accompanied by a property tax reduction. But Netsch didn't see it that way. "I have been — to put it mildly — more than surprised at the way that's been handled," she says. "The day I announced, the media played it under circumstances that were more than I could ask for. Most were saying clearly that it's a combination income tax raise/property tax cut I was calling for. Hey folks — I'm not going to say we'll save by cutting waste in state government.

Whitley says that while such pronouncements may be politically risky, they're more beneficial to those members of the public who care enough to pay attention. "It's much better to be the one who says what needs to be done and lose than one who obfuscates," he says. "It's incumbent on a candidate to tell us what they want to do. I'd rather have that than obfuscation.

"She has been an outstanding public servant, probably most of all because of her commitment and detailed knowledge of the revenue and spending components of the state," Whitley says. "And she's willing to tell people things they may not want to hear. She is definitely a stronger person than 15 to 20 years ago to assume statewide leadership."

Her greatest weakness, Whitley says, may be the depth of knowledge she possesses. "She doesn't always communicate in a way that's effective, and I think she will have difficulty communicating the depth of her knowledge in a way that will interest voters. Let's face it, a lot of people don't care about numbers even though much of government boils down to 'Who pays?' and 'What are the costs?' That's an aspect of government that draws yawns."

But to Netsch, frank discussion of the financial issues that frame our whole state policy are crucial, however boring or politically dangerous they may be

But to Netsch, frank discussion of the financial issues that frame our whole state policy are crucial, however boring or politically dangerous they may be. "I don't have any other reason for doing all of this," she says. "Education is the most important service we provide, and the way we fund it is not right. If somebody looks at what I've been doing for the last 18 years ... I wrote that doggone sentence in the state constitution. [It says: "The state has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public educational institutions and services."] I've been talking about the need to re-focus school funding for years. On my academic side I write and teach about school funding. So it never occurred to me that I wouldn't raise a tax shift as an issue."

If there's one thing Netsch has learned from the time she's spent in government, it's that nothing occurs quickly. "It can take 10 or 15 years sometimes to get anything done," she says. "Things build up very slowly — you have to make your points over and over." She uses the lobbyist registration measure recently signed into law as an example. "That was something I worked on years ago, but you don't get credit for it when it passes a decade later."

"More ethics legislation will be passed," she predicts. "I think something probably will happen on campaign financing before long, which is a much more serious problem for the election process. It's very scary the extent to which it dominates the political process."

So while "reinventing government" isn't a concept that Netsch gets too excited about, she sees major, definitive changes in order for Illinois. A better way to sum up her view could be "reinventing politics.*

18/November 1993/Illinois Issues