(ABTA) - Bill Posey for Congress

By

William J. “Bill” PoseyState Senator

Florida - District 24

The Birth of Common Sense inGovernment Accountability

(ABTA)

Activity Based TotalAccountability

By

William J. “Bill” Posey

Copyright 2006 by William J. PoseyPrinted and bound in the United States of America

ISBN: 0-9661554-2-4

All rights reservedNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior written consent of the author.

First Edition 2006

Direct all inquiries to Posey & Co.1824 S. Fiske Boulevard, Rockledge, Florida 32955

Phone(321) 631-1590 - (321) 632-6852E-mail: [email protected]

To Billy, Clarke, and Little Katie - This is for you and your generation.

Contents

Preface .......................................................................................................... iii

1 A View of the Past........................................................................................1

2 A View of the Present ..................................................................................3

3 Accountability is a Necessity .......................................................................9

4 ABTA is the “Missing Link”...................................................................... 11

5 The Practical Application of ABTA ...........................................................15

6 The Top Ten Reasons Why Bureaucrats Oppose ABTA............................19

7 What can you do? ......................................................................................29

Samples .........................................................................................................31

Acknowledgments

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Florida House of RepresentativesCommittee on Government Operations

April 15, 1998 3:45 PM 413C

“When Representative Posey, served on the Joint Government AppropriationsCommittee, he brought this to us many times. At the time, we thought some of those ideaswere on the fringe of being radical. But, as we got into it more and more, I can’t tell you howmuch it has helped our committee in deliberating the budget and how much of a savings wefound throughout the agencies. So I want to commend him because for two years we havekind of looked at him, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah,’ but we finally saw the light.”

State Representative Ken Pruitt (R-Port St. Lucie)

“I, too, would like to speak in favor of Mr. Posey’s bill, because I am one of the ones whomade fun at Representative Posey on this bill on many occasions. I started reading a lot ofhis materials and the materials that were presented to us by the agencies. I tried to take thatsame material and even apply it to my own personal business and I found out he was reallyon target. I think it will be a good bill that many members even would like to sign on to. Iurge members to support his bill.”

State Representative Al Lawson (D-Tallahassee)

Note: Representatives Pruitt and Lawson were elected to the Florida Senate in 2000.Both currently serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee,

formerly chaired by Senate President-Designate Pruitt.

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Preface“With all due respect, your honor, they are all guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” roared the

prosecutor. “We trusted them and they betrayed us. Every single one of them deserves to beexecuted. They all promised to find the waste, “cut the fat” or otherwise ensure our resourceswere wisely spent. However, a preponderance of evidence clearly suggests that gross amountsof waste still exist and there is no documented proof taxes were ever well spent.”

“Yes, each and every one of them could have made a difference,” continued the prosecutor.“So much more could have been done to keep the United States of America a land of opportunity,to eliminate human suffering and protect the futures of our children. However, through theirtreasonous inattention to accountability, they helped erode citizens’ confidence in our governmentand cause its demise. Some have tried to escape responsibility by claiming they didn’t knowwhat to do. But ignorance is no excuse, considering the fact that a plan for Activity Based TotalAccountability existed for over a decade. The inexcusable near collapse of our representativeself government is more the result of their laziness than their stupidity.”

Thousands of men and women are on trial following historic passage of a national citizen-led referendum that criminalized the inaction of government leaders. Local council members,alderman, commissioners and mayors, school board members, county commissioners, staterepresentatives and senators, governors, U S senators and congressmen, even presidents – arenow wishing they had not wasted their opportunity to make the American experiment at selfgovernment successful. Unfortunately, it is too late for them to escape the judgment of suchindictments.

The foregoing scenario may seem surreal, but it illustrates the real danger of apatheticleadership. That is the reason for this book.

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It was a long and painful journey, typicallyexpected to last a week. However, this trip tooksixteen days and now he was arriving nine days late.Unlike some less fortunate colleagues of his era, hesurvived the dangers of bitter cold, howling winds,pelting rains, washed out paths (the highways of theday), hunger, fever, rattlesnakes, robbers and attacksby hostile Indians. He took them all in stride. Allwere common perils he could face on any given day,at home or on the road. The most difficult part wasthe separation from the family he left behind in ahostile land, without any direct communications forover two months.

“Whoa, boy” he mumbled as his exhaustedhorse clopped slowly down the cold and dusty streetthat winter morning. They stopped in front of theWalker Family’s house. The freshman legislatordismounted and went inside the wood frame home,where the House of Representatives was in session.

With minor differences, this scene couldhave taken place in almost any state at one time oranother. This particular time, January 16, 1839, itinvolved the Territory of Florida’s RepresentativeWilliam Williams of Mosquito County. Even thoughFlorida would not become a state for another sixyears, this was the seventeenth legislative sessionof the House of Representatives and the first forFlorida’s Senate.

Once inside the Walker’s home, like manylegislators in state capitols today, Williams wouldhave been supplied a generous collection oflegislative documents by Joseph Lancaster, chiefclerk of the House of Representatives and one of itssix paid staff members. Williams’ attention mighthave then been drawn to committee assignments.On the day of Williams’ arrival, the Speakerappointed twelve House standing committees:Judiciary, Schools & Colleges, State of the Territory,Finance, Banks, Elections, Agriculture, Claims,Accounts, Enrolled Bills, Internal Improvement and

Militia Committees. He was assigned to the lattertwo.

Serving on the Militia Committee, Williams andhis colleagues would confront the most pressingissue of that period: terrorism. Indians, who hadbeen displaced by the settlers, were fighting back.The Indians knew they could not prevail in warfareusing conventional battlefield tactics, so theyresorted to terrorism. Excerpts from a message theGovernor delivered to the Legislature put the matterin clear perspective. “Settlements have beenharassed by the marauding bands of the enemy…with all the appalling incidents of savage warfare…in which whole families were murdered by themidnight attacks… inhabitants were kept in a stateof perpetual danger and alarm, and… everysettlement, and every inhabitant was exposed tomassacre,” stated the Governor.

By comparison, the charge to the InternalImprovement Committee would have seemed mild.Still, there were important infrastructure challenges.Legislation was presented to improve public roads,“respecting” stagecoach lines, extending railroadsand establishing ferries across many of the region’sinland waterways.

Education was a controversial issue. Numerousbills were filed regarding who should be provided apublic education. Some thought only orphans shouldbe afforded a free education. Some thought poorchildren should also be included. The committeewould observe “in the conclusion of their report thatthe subject of education is one of momentousimportance… a well organized system (should) beadopted, by which all classes of youth might, asspeedily as possible, have extended to them thoseadvantages which alone can qualify them for theuseful employments of life.” Controversy centeredon how the plans would be funded.

The Governor described public assistance

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provided by the territory as follows: “In compliancewith a resolution passed at the last session of theLegislative Council, requiring the Executive tofurnish provisions for suffering inhabitants of thefrontier, a quantity of corn was purchased and sentto be distributed among the families.”

Many other issues addressed by lawmakersduring the session included the incorporation andregulation of banks and political subdivisions, claimsbills, several lottery proposals, dozens of resolutions,collecting revenue, approving expenditures, seekingfederal financial assistance, gun control, executions,labor laws, housing for prisoners, granting ofdivorces, and last but not least –governmentaccountability. More than 150 years ago, in a seriesof messages to legislators, Florida’s TerritorialGovernor Richard Keith Call made the followingobservations about government accountability:

! “I believe that the Territory has sustained muchinjury in the careless or prodigal managementof its revenues, by its former agents and thebusiness has been conducted in such a looseand irregular manner, as to require much laborin placing it in a condition to be understood…It will become necessary to adopt more efficientmeasures to protect it from waste.”

! “I have not seen the (revenue) bill you haveunder consideration and cannot say how far itsprovisions are required by the present conditionof the country, but of this I am assured, anyalteration of our present system, if system it maybe called, will be an improvement.”

! “… The irresponsibility of the officers, and theconsequent dissipation of the public revenueare evils which demand correction from therepresentatives of the people. They havereposed their confidence in you and theirinterest requires your attention.”

! “The revenue collected from the people is, insome cases, squandered by faithless agents.”

“Issues come and go, and come back again. Theprocess is always here, and until we look atchanging it, these issues may keep coming back.”

Daniel Webster, Speaker,Florida House of Representatives,

February 22, 1998- ORLANDO SENTINEL

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Dr. Mark Rutland once delivered a sermon aboutPalm Sunday, which I could not help relating to thelegislative process.

The Bible story tells about Jesus riding a donkeydown the road, a dirt path in those days, to Jerusalem.Along the way, admirers lined both sides of the path.They shouted praises and even took the clothing offtheir backs to put down in the dirt so that thedonkey’s hooves did not touch the dirt.

In many legislatures, lawmakers walk through asea of busy lobbyists, who greet them gleefully bytitle, as they make their way to their respectivelegislative chambers. These lawmakers usually entertheir chambers through great mahogany or otherexpensive and imposing wooden doors, opened byemployees who recognize the legislators as theyapproach. “Good morning, Senator orRepresentative Whoever,” these doormen cheerfullydeclare, greeting the lawmakers with a sound thattypically borders between a whistle and a song. Afterthe lawmakers pass through the imposing outerdoors, they may be faced by a set of glass doors,that are also cheerfully opened for the lawmakersbefore they can begin to perform this simple taskthemselves.

Inside the legislative chamber, a lawmaker willfind his or her assigned seat to be an obviouslyexpensive, large, comfortable, and colorful, leatherexecutive swivel chair. Seated comfortably in theirseats, lawmakers may find a touch screen computeron their desks, enabling them to conveniently viewthe day’s agenda, proposed legislation, and up-to-the moment amendments, and to communicateprivately with colleagues. Additionally, a greenbutton for voting in the affirmative and a red buttonfor doing just the opposite is almost always found.There might also be a blue button, which whenilluminated, represents a summons to see thepresiding officer. There could also be a yellowbutton. Pushing the yellow button will immediately

bring a bright-eyed young messenger to alawmaker’s desk. The enthusiastic messenger mightperform a variety of duties from making copies ofdocuments to sharpening pencils or even bringingthe lawmaker a cup of coffee.

When lawmakers look above the chamber, theyoften find the galleries are filled with spectators.Often each seat has been taken and people arestanding on every available inch of floor space toobserve the important business taking place below.These standing-room-only audiences often witnessages old formal traditions and hear an abundant useof protocols and noble sounding titles, as thelawmakers attend to the important business of thepeople.

Later, when the lawmakers exit their chambersand return to their offices, they again make their waythrough the sea of friendly back-slapping lobbyists.And, once in their offices, lawmakers have manyvisitors. They may find lobbyists, constituents andother groups waiting in line for the opportunity totalk. Time has proven it is almost impossible for alawmaker to tell a joke, even one that is not funny,that does not invoke a hearty knee-slapping reaction.

What does all the foregoing have to do with thePalm Sunday story? The donkey in the story was aservant, not a master. All of the pomp andcircumstance was not about him. The question iswhether or not the little burro realized it? Somejackasses don’t.

In political campaigns, candidates for publicoffice often determine it necessary, either becausethey believe it to be true or because they believe itwill enhance their ability to be elected, to make anissue out of the unwise expenditure of public money.At some point in his or her campaign, almost everycandidate alleges that public money was not spentwisely. Candidates often promise, that when elected,they will provide leadership to ensure the mosteffective and efficient expenditure of taxpayers’

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dollars. Once elected, they find it much moredifficult to fulfill such campaign promises. As aresult, they only heighten the public’s skepticismand cynicism about government’s resolve to beaccountable and efficient in its operations.

Most of America’s elected officials, at local, stateand federal levels, really would like to improveaccountability, and some have tried. Over the years,attempts have been made by many to improve fiscalaccountability. Some improvements have beenmade. However, it appears that despite their effortsto ensure the wisest possible allocations of publicresources, most well-intentioned legislators havefailed. Worse, they have given up. No one expectedthem to make things perfect, but they were expectedto make a legitimate difference.

Why did they fail? There are many reasons.

Many states have part-time legislators. Most ofthe year they have the same responsibilities andconcerns as the rest of their state’s citizens. Theygo to work, operate businesses, take care of familiesand spend considerable time assisting constituentsand engaging in the numerous activities related totheir duties as legislators.

During legislative sessions and interimcommittee meeting periods prior to the session, alegislator’s attention is occupied with a myriad ofreal and perceived responsibilities. The focus of atypical legislator must extend to the thousands ofbills filed by others on every conceivable subject;to efforts aimed at winning passage of personallegislation; to efforts directed toward securingfunding for important projects in his or her district;to preparation for attendance at committee meetingsand general sessions of the legislature, includingthose associated with the members, legislative staff,media representatives, visitors and lobbyists.

Considerable amounts of a legislator’s time arealso consumed by campaigning and other re-electionactivities.

By contrast, most personnel of the Governor’soffice, the Legislature and the executive agenciesenjoy a wider span of time to focus completely onthe budget and appropriations process. There ishistorical precedence that speaks volumes about how

the process is brought to successful completion yearafter year, and which variables are considered inbudget deliberations. Full- time staff employees alsousually control the flow of information available tolegislators.

Knowledge, we know, is power, and agencyheads routinely demonstrate enough knowledge togain timely approval of multi-billion dollar budgetsin short periods of time.

Legislators, on the other hand, get advancecopies of proposed budgets only a day or so beforecommittee meetings at which they are expected tovote on them. During such meetings, legislators arepresented, often for the very first time, with dozensof last minute multi-million dollar amendments thatthey are expected to approve with little or nodiscussion.

During one of my first AppropriationsCommittee meetings, I was handed a stack of suchamendments. Agencies were justifying theamendments and getting them approved with one-sentence explanations at the rate of about fifteenseconds each.

The first amendment to catch my eye might nothave seemed very significant in the current multi-billion dollar grand scheme of things. Nonetheless,I could not help but recognize that the amount ofmoney involved was similar to that in the firstAdministrative Budget that took weeks to develop,when I was serving my first term as a citycouncilman. Dialogue concerning the almost $4.5million amendment went approximately as follows.

The agency’s spokesman explained the amendmentas: “adding 23 additional firefighter positions to aforestry division.”

Legislator: “Where would someone apply for oneof these $192,000 entry level jobs?”

Agency spokesman: “The jobs don’t pay $192,000,they pay just a little over $20,000 each. The restof the money is for equipment the new employeeswill need, such as tractors, backhoes and the like.”

Legislator: “Then, wouldn’t it be more appropriateto have two line items–one for salaries and benefitsof roughly one half million dollars and the other

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for equipment amounting to four million dollars?”

Agency Spokesman: “What is the point?”

Legislator: “I know your agency would not do it,but number one, history shows there could be adeserved skepticism about all of the money beingspent exactly as you have described. For example,the way it appears as a single line item, it wouldtechnically allow the agency personnel to hire thenew entry-level employees and spend theremaining money on increasing their salaries–noton equipment.”

Agency Spokesman: “That is not our intent. Wewould never do that.”

Legislator: “I know your agency wouldn’t, but asyou are certainly aware, there are hundreds, if notthousands, of vacant positions in the budget.Those positions are not vacant because they cannotfind qualified employees. The positions are vacantbecause the agencies spent the money appropriatedfor those positions by giving it to otheremployees.”

Agency Spokesman: “Yes, I am aware of thatpractice, but we would not do that.”

Legislator: “Number two–Although your agencyintends to purchase about four million dollarsworth of equipment with the remainder of themoney–as an indistinguishable part of a single lineitem appropriated for adding employees, a prudentperson not privy to this conversation mightconclude the agency could unfairly add the entireamount to its base salary requirement in next year’sbudget.”

Agency Spokesman: “That is not our intent.”

Legislator: “Again, I know it is not your intent. And,number three, a single line item comminglingsalaries and equipment makes it difficult toapportion the amortized cost of the equipment tothe agency’s activities.”

Agency spokesman: (silence)

Legislator: “I would like to respectfully request thatyour agency redraft the amendment to more clearlyreflect the purposes for which the agency intendsto spend the money.”

Agency Spokesman: (silence)

Committee Chairman: “All in favor of theamendment say “Aye.”

Majority of Committee Members: “Aye.”

Committee Chairman: “Show the amendmentadopted.”

State budgets in our time are voluminous andthey are not easy to understand for many legislators,much less the average citizen. At the same time, itis a goal of contemporary lawmaking that the lawbe clearly written so that the average citizen cancomprehend.

Given the vast detail and extreme length andcomplexity of today’s government budgets, it is notdifficult to understand why legislators have failedto incorporate greater standards for accountabilityinto the legislative budget process. The obviousreason appears simply to be because they were toobusy, or otherwise unwilling or unable to put forththe required effort. Budget accountability, althoughimportant, has not been their only responsibility.

It took seven years of relentless effort to getActivity Based Total Accountability (ABTA) passedin Florida, at which point it caught the eye of theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),the nation’s largest nonprofit, bi-partisanmembership association of state legislators. ALECExecutive Director, Duane Parde, described ABTAas, “the best piece of legislation to come out of anystate capitol in over a decade.” At its 1999 nationalconvention in Nashville, ALEC’s Tax and FiscalPolicy Task Force referred to it as the “Truth inSpending Act.” The Task Force unanimouslyrecommended ABTA as model legislation foradoption by every state. Unfortunately, it has notpassed in any other state besides Florida.

The National Conference of State Legislatures(NCSL) also recognized and promoted theimportance of ABTA. Ronald K. Snell, director ofNCSL’s Economic, Fiscal & Human ResourcesDivision, is perhaps the most well-informedproponent of performance budgeting I have ever met.Snell invited Blaine Liner of The Urban Institute,based in Washington DC, and me to discuss

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“Legislatures and Performance Budgets” at the 2000NCSL national convention in Chicago. Maine’sState Senator Mike Michaud was scheduled to bethe moderator.

Ron Snell’s invitation to speak in Chicago leftme with mixed emotions. I was engaged in aprolonged campaign and the election would be just40 days away. Nonetheless, it was impossible topass up the opportunity to promote ABTA.

Our session was scheduled for a Tuesday from2:45 to 5:00 pm. I know Tuesdays are good golfdays. I also know lectures scheduled between a latelunch and cocktail hour historically are not wellattended. Still, I hoped there would be enoughinterest to justify the effort. Subsequently, it wasannounced that a presidential candidate would bemaking a swing through the luncheon and thestarting time of our session was delayed further. Ibegan to wonder if there would be enough for Blaine,Mike and I to talk about – to each other.

Because I had minimal expectation ofconventioneers actually showing up for a late-daysession concerning the exciting subject ofperformance budgets, I did not go to the trouble oflocating the meeting room ahead of time. When thetime came, I looked at the floor plan provided in theregistration packet and made my way down the hugesparse hallway, flanked with meeting rooms on eitherside. As I approached the area designated for oursession, I saw a large crowd of people outside. Itreminded me of those high school occasions whensomeone hollered, “fight” and anyone who wasbreathing ended up in the same cluster of humanity.As I got closer, a sign on the wall confirmed thatthis was, in fact, the location of our session. Unlessthey were ill-informed, this crowd of people wasthere to hear it. I wondered why they didn’t goinside, and squeezed through the crowd to thedoorway. Looking inside, I was shocked to see theroom was already filled with people. They wereeven standing in the aisles. Ron Snell was standingat the front of the room and motioned for me to joinhim. After introducing me to Michaud and Liner,Snell explained that the number of attendeessurprised everyone and the convention center staffwere trying to see if they could take down any ofthe removable sidewall partitions to allow more

people inside the room. Unfortunately, the staffcould not accommodate this request. Some of thenarrow desk-like tables were removed and replacedwith more chairs. Even so, everyone would not fitinto the room. When Michaud began speaking, youcould see through the open doors there was still alarge crowd spilling out into the hall.

Liner and I each spoke for twenty minutes. Thenwe fielded questions from a bright and surprisinglyenthusiastic audience of legislators, staff and agencypersonnel until 5:15. To my amazement, not a singleperson appeared to leave the room until the sessionended. No other evidence could have betterconvinced me of the shared desire for greateraccountability–except perhaps, a subsequent noteSnell sent me. In part, he wrote, “After the session,I learned that there were people listening throughthe wall in the next room over.”

With the shared knowledge and enthusiasm ofso many apparent new proponents, could the use ofABTA still fail to become commonplace? Theanswer is yes. To my knowledge no other state haspassed a comprehensive plan for ABTA. Whosefault is that? Governor Call best explained it in amessage to lawmakers more than 150 years ago.“The irresponsibility of the officers and theconsequent dissipation of the public revenue areevils which demand correction from therepresentatives of the people. They have reposedtheir confidence in you and their interest requiresyour attention.” That being said, it does not matterwhose fault it was yesterday or whose fault it maybe tomorrow. Right NOW it is the fault of incumbentlegislators.

What will it take for ABTA succeed? Probablynew leaders, who are better informed and morecommitted. That is the reason I’ve written this book.

I write not about theoretical methods ofprivatizing, reinventing or trashing government.Much more comprehensive books on those subjectsexist already. This is intended to be a nuts and boltsguide to making government more accountable.Henceforth, ideas will be stated as succinctly aspossible, to prevent the text from becoming “toothick” so that it can be picked up and read by busypeople who need to read it.

6

To some “experts” the thoughts expressed hereinmight seem too elementary–but this was not writtenfor them. On the other hand, novices to thebudgeting process might find this material somewhatcomplex. Others may find the directness of myapproach to be heavy handed, extreme, insensitive,insulting and filled with offensive self-importantdelusions of grandeur. So be it. My attempt will beto anticipate and balance the inevitable differencesin the knowledge and experience levels of potentialreaders. And I will use the simplest languagepossible to minimize the effort required to absorbthis subject matter.

This book is not about me and I regret thefrequent references to “I, me, or my.” However,personal experience is the best way to relate myobservations of the legislative process. Someexplanations would become more wordy and soundmore complicated by the time they were convertedto third party observations.

This text represents neither brilliance norextraordinary creativity. To the contrary, it representswhat I consider to be a very common sense approachto ABTA. If you were to spend as much time as Ihave focusing on the same issues, you wouldprobably arrive at many of the same conclusions. Ifyou pursued the matter as long as I have, you wouldno doubt sooner or later share much of the sameexperience. Hopefully, the insight you glean fromsome of my experiences will save you time andfrustration as you pursue improved governmentaccountability.

Another one of my goals, when seeking electionto the legislature, was to advocate needed reformsto our state’s rule-making process, subsumed in theAdministrative Procedures Act. At the time, I beganmy tenure in the Florida House, bureaucrats wereseemingly plundering public resources bypromulgating rules –enforceable as laws whichclearly exceeded legislative intent. When I filedlegislation making such abuse a crime, criticsclaimed that I belonged in a straight jacket, not inthe Legislature. I faithfully fought for the neededreform for four years with very little success.

Around the same time Governor Lawton Chiles,trying to build a little hunting “cook shack” on his

private Chemonie Plantation, got personally caughtup in the bureaucratic maze of senseless agencyrules. And about that same time, the Governor readPhillip Howard’s wonderful book, THE DEATH OFCOMMON SENSE. Now the Governor had the bigpicture. When he gave his final State of the Stateaddress, he wore a back brace so he could lift theenormous stack of insipid rules that did little morethan give bureaucrats undeserved and unbridledpower and authority to abuse the rights of citizens.So at just about the time my adversaries thought theycould finally have me committed to a mentalinstitution, the Governor saved the day.

My views, which just a day earlier werepresumed to certify me as a right wing fringe lunatic,suddenly became mainstream thoughts. My stockwent from zero to hero, and with StateRepresentative Ken Pruitt leading the charge, theAdministrative Procedures Act was reformed.

So, critics, take your best shot.

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Accountability Is a Necessity

The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher,once gave a speech in which she called Americans“the most generous people on the face of the Earth.”Americans will give you the shirt off of their backsif they think you need it. Still, Americans are knownto bristle over the thought of increased taxes. Why?It is a matter of accountability, or the lack thereof.Rightly or wrongly, most Americans are notconvinced their tax dollars are well spent.

Almost everyone has, at one time or another,channel surfed to discover a heart wrenching pleafor money to feed starving children. Some well-known public figure, standing among emaciatedchildren, claims that their hunger and fly infestedmisery can be eliminated if viewers will send money.Americans are generous and love children, but thereis one main reason why every viewer does not reachfor a checkbook. It is a matter of accountability, orthe lack thereof. Experience has convinced viewersthat their contributions never reach the starvingchildren.

Obliged to account for one’s acts; responsible;capable of being accounted for; and explainable –these are all phrases and synonyms your dictionarymight use in defining accountability.

A list of examples of accountability wouldinclude such things as report cards, time cards, cashregister receipts, traffic citations, incarcerationterms, and elections. Term limits constitute voters’response to a perceived lack of accountability.

In one way or another, accountability has alwaysbeen a significant factor in the way we work or play.Degree of accountability is also the basis for muchof government’s successes and failures.

For long-term survival, America’s citizens mustrespect our experiment at self-government. Manythings are necessary for it to be respected. Achieving

reasonable efficiency is one of the requirements.And, efficiency is inextricably tied to accountability.

The Associated Press once reported that 72percent of respondents polled identified governmentwaste as a “critical concern.” In the same news story,a budget director for two former governors wasquoted as saying, “the reality is that certainly dollarscan be reallocated from lower to higher priority uses,but that is very difficult for government decision-makers.” “The waste is appalling,” said a healthcare worker quoted in the same article. “They justthrow the money at some problem and it doesn’t getsolved.”

Another survey revealed a decline from 48% tojust 34% of those surveyed who actually trusted stategovernment to do what was right most of the time.Those surveyed thought 36% of local governmentswere doing an excellent job. Just 21% thought theycould trust the federal government to do the rightthing most of the time.

The public has – and should have a good memoryfor such well publicized government inefficienciesas purchasing $750 hammers, $2,000 toilet seats,spending almost a million dollars to train a workerfor an entry level job and allocating roughly $4million dollars to the goal of preventing the deathsof just 2 manatees! The public perception seems tobe that where there is smoke, there is fire. And, tomost people, perception constitutes reality.

Accountability in making the wisest possibleallocations of public resources is perhaps the bestway to help restore public trust in government.Beyond concerns about the public perception, realityassures us the more accountable government is, themore efficiently it will operate. There is no ‘downside’ to improved government accountability.

Achieving improved accountability is no longeran option to be considered–it is a necessity.

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Getting rid of rotten apples was cumbersome toimpossible before the passage of Governor JebBush’s “Service First” reforms in 2001. Prior tothat time, poor job performance was not groundsfor firing Career Service Employees in Florida. Whatdid it take to get rid of a poorly performingemployee? We once passed Amendment 85 to SB36, effectively abolishing an entire department.Then all the employees, except one, were“transitioned” to a new department.

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What is Activity Based Total Accountability?

“The Missing Link”

ABTA is a method of activity based full costaccounting with three primary functions. It servesas an accountability tool, a budgeting tool and apolicy making tool–helping to best understand, planand utilize financial resources.

Properly executed, ABTA also represents afinancial management tool for TOTAL budgetaccountability using the time proven Unit Costsystem as its prime component.

The proverbial “missing link” in the modern dayevolution of accountability is ABTA’s provision formeasuring the TOTAL cost of “all activities”performed.

ABTA does not focus on goals, outputs,outcomes or benchmarks. Those components maybe measured elsewhere. ABTA avoids them for tworeasons. First, because even the experts agree thatsuch terms can be confusing and frequently meandifferent things to different people. Second, becausethe total amount of money focused on an agency’sgoals, outputs, outcomes or benchmarks may notadd up to the total amount of its budget. Conversely,the term “activity” is generally acknowledged torefer to any action to accomplish something. Thus,ABTA provides a means for measuring everythinggovernment does.

Most government budgets are “input based” –meaning that they focus on how much money isallocated to programs and not on what actually getsaccomplished or how much it really costs. To mostpeople, looking at a state budget would probably besimilar to looking at a large metropolitan city’stelephone directory–written in Chinese. Theinformation is there, but the interrelationshipsconstituted by the information are, as a whole, almostincomprehensible. Sifting through a modern state

budget’s line items, trust funds, pass-through funds,categorical funds, full-time equivalency units,matching funds, federal guidelines, provisolanguage, reversions, double budgeting, andinnumerable other aspects and contingencies of thesebudgets can be an exasperating experience forlegislators too. An agency’s budget may contain aspecific appropriation, which the agency cannot orwill not adequately explain. The agency mightattempt to shift responsibility for expenditures toanother agency, that repeats the same rigarmaroleas the first. Trying to “follow the money” can belike trying to compress a foot long water balloon inyour hands. As soon you grip on one section, theballoon’s pressure causes it to expand at the ends.When you grip another section with your other hand,the result is the same. This process can repeat itselfover and over – forever. ABTA’s requirement toapportion every dollar an agency receives to aspecific activity eliminates such slippage andconsequent vagueness.

Legislators receive stacks and stacks of auditstelling them that state funds have not beenembezzled or otherwise stolen, but nothing actuallyshows whether or not state funds have been wellspent. Programs such as Zero Based Budgeting andPerformance Based Budgeting (PB2) may soundimpressive and doubtless they have addedinformation to the accountability process. However,while providing additional information forconsideration, neither program has tied the TOTALamount of money spent on various activities tomeasurable results. ABTA ties dollars spent tospecific activities, which can then be measured.

When I was serving in the state House ofRepresentatives, the only time the entire membershipwas brought together in the chamber, while not insession, was for a briefing on Performance BasedBudgeting. One of our agencies, the FloridaDepartment of Law Enforcement, had received anational award for its “leading edge” program. The

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presentation revealed a simple laundry list ofitemized tasks performed by the agency for the totalsum of its budget and a few random goals for thefollowing year.

For example: One component cited locating acertain number of missing children. There was alsoa stated goal to locate additional missing childrenthe following year. However, there was no way tomeasure the amount of effort, activity, or cost of thisor any other department’s tasks. Did it cost anaverage of a thousand dollars (through coordinatedinternet communications with other law enforcementagencies) or an average of millions of dollars (forexhaustive physical searches) to find each child? Iasked that question. The agency’s spokesman saidthey didn’t know the answer. An astonishinglychallenged colleague immediately jumped to defendthe vagueness. “It wouldn’t matter if one of themwas your child,” this bachelor lectured, seeming notto have a clue that improved efficiency would meanfinding more children, not fewer.

Privately, I later asked the representative toimagine a supermarket where none of the items aremarked with prices. With a cart half-full ofgroceries, a shopper goes to the check out counter,where the following conversation takes place.

Cashier: “That will be $400.”

Shopper: “Will you please provide me with anitemized receipt?”

Cashier: “No, but if you insist, I might tell you howmuch I think some of the items cost.”

At that point, the bachelor apologeticallyinterjected that he “got the point.” If the forgoinganalogy was good enough to put things inperspective for him, it is probably adequate foranyone reading this.

ABTA can most simply be compared to gettinga fully itemized receipt for government’sexpenditures. This is how it works.

! Each agency or budget entity provides a one-page “snapshot” of its major activitiesrepresenting the services it provides.

o Each major activity is expressed as a line item.

o Each line item has four columns – for purposesof explanation let us now refer to them ascolumns (left to right) A,B,C, and D.

o Column A identifies the activity.

o Column B reflects the number of activitiesperformed.

o Column C reflects the cost per activity.

o Column D reflects the total amountexpended for the activity.

o The figure E represents the total of all sumsin column D and must equal the amount ofthe agency’s or budget entity’s total revenues.

! The combined E totals of all agencies or budgetentities must equal the total amount of the entirebudget.

As an illustration with the simplest possibleexplanation, let’s suppose that there exists aDepartment of Fruit Counting. DoFC has a budgetof ten dollars and is responsible for just fouractivities–counting apples, counting oranges,counting lemons and counting grapefruit. Let usalso assume that all of the counters are equallyefficient and that each variety of fruit costs the sameamount to count. An ABTA “snapshot” of the DoFCcould be reasonably expected to resemble theillustration identified as Snapshot 1.

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DEPARTMENT OF FRUIT COUNTINGTotal Expenditures $10.00(E)

Activity(A) #(B) Unit cost(C) Total(D)

Counting apples 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting oranges 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting lemons 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50

Total (E) $ 10.00

Snapshot 1

If the orange, lemon and grapefruit counters were100% more efficient than apple counters the“snapshot” would resemble the following illustrationidentified as Snapshot 2.

Snapshot 2 reflects an obvious need to focusattention on improving the efficiency of the apple

counters. DoFC may have survived numerous auditsof its financial practices and a plethora of its goals,outputs, outcomes, and benchmarks may have beenmet ranging from meeting desired hiring practicesto conserving electricity and making certain that allstate counted fruit was indeed counted. However,without ABTA there is no assurance that thedeficiencies in the performance of the apple counterswould have been recognized. Again, ABTA requiresthat every activity be reported. Only thus, can everyactivity be measured.

Agencies occasionally expend funds forsubstantial capital improvements that would notaccurately reflect the cost of specific activities if theentire amounts expended were wholly attributed tospecific activities in a single year. Such expenditureis commonly referred to as a “Capital Outlay”expense. There are “Fixed Capital Outlay” and“Operating Capital Outlay” expenses, both of whichare treated in the same way. It makes no differenceif such expenditures are made in a single year orspread out over two or more budget years. The costof such capital improvements should be amortizedover the useful life of the improvement. If the costof the capital improvement is thirty million dollarsand the improvement has a useful life of thirty years,then one million dollars per year should added tothe cost of activities supported by that capitalimprovement. In such cases, the expense can beshown as normal line item activity with the totalexpenditure listed in column (D). Some agenciesmay find it more practical to add an additionalcolumn (F), reflecting capital outlay, to theirsnapshots. Still, the total of all costs–includingCapital Outlay must be reflected in the TotalsExpenditures (E).

Here is an example. Suppose the DoFC budget

was increased by $3 to include the cost ofconstructing a new headquarters building. TheCapital Outlay cost could be reflected as a normalline item as shown in Snapshot 3. Note that Totals(E) still equal the total of all funds expended.

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DEPARTMENT OF FRUIT COUNTINGTotal Expenditures $10.00

Activity # Unit cost Total


Total $ 10.00

Snapshot 2



Counting apples 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting oranges 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting lemons 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Capital Outlay $ 3.00

Total (E) $ 13.00

Snapshot 3

The DoFC could also reflect the Capital Outlayexpense in column (F), as shown in Snapshot 4.Note that Total Expenditures (E) still equal the totalof all funds expended.

If your state has thirty-five agencies, ABTAwould provide you with a readily comprehensiblethirty-five page document describing every majoractivity your government performs and the cost ofeach activity.

What if agencies fudge? What if they don’tknow what they are doing? What if the actual costof an activity is underreported? Those questions,and others similar to them, will be addressed infollowing chapters.

There will never be a perfect system of


Activity(A) #(B) Unit cost(C) Total(D) C.O. (F)

Counting apples 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting oranges 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting lemons 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .125 ea. $ 2.50Capital Outlay $ 3.00

Total (E) $ 13.00

Snapshot 4

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accountability any more than there will be perfectlegal or medical delivery systems. However, to date,ABTA represents the best possible foundation forgovernment accountability. It will always be a workin progress and will improve with each generation.

The Practical Application of ABTA

A properly structured plan to make governmentaccountable, like a properly structured plan for aphysical structures, needs to be based upon a solidfoundation. ABTA provides the necessary solidfoundation.

In an effort to help restore citizens’ confidencein government, ABTA was developed initially as anaccountability tool to help lawmakers betterunderstand how governments spend their money.However, ABTA will do more. ABTA will also serveas a policy making tool by helping lawmakersidentify legislative priorities and as a budgeting toolby helping lawmakers ensure that money isappropriated in a manner consistent with legislativepriorities.

As an accountability tool, ABTA establishes afirm foundation for accountability by clearlyidentifying what government does and what it reallycosts. It adds value to Performance Based Budgetsby reconciling direct, indirect and otherwiseexpended costs. By providing a common managerialframework for support activities, it connects all coststo specific measurable activities. It can also serveas a comparative indicator of efficiency and helpidentify areas that need management attention.Understand clearly, however, that ABTA does notreplace performance budgets, it enhances them.

While ABTA will tell you the true cost of agovernment activity, it will not tell you the qualityof an activity. For example, some people believethe activities performed by government would bemore efficiently executed if they were all privatized.Competition, proponents allege, force serviceproviders to be efficient. However, a good argumentto the contrary is my experience with security at thestate’s many highway rest areas. In an effort to cutcosts, the state outsourced security to the lowestbidder. As a result, in many cases the security guard

on duty was an obviously out-of-shape retiree in arusted out sedan with magnetic signs on the sides toidentify him as “security.” If asked, almost everyonewould tell you the lowest bid rent-a-guard did notmake him or her feel secure. “Four more just likehim wouldn’t either,” said one frequent traveler.When asked if a State Trooper would make themfeel more secure, the response was always awholehearted, “Yes!” That essential quality ofservice or performance is the major reason whyperformance standards, in addition to activity costs,must be considered.

As a policy-making tool, ABTA will provide thefoundation for establishing realistic performancemeasurements such as goals, standards, outcomes,benchmarks, and so forth, by identifying whatgovernment needs to do and what it costs. It enableslegislators, staff members, agencies and theiremployees to better understand their resources andtheir missions. Of course, that will result in makingthem better decision makers. It will also encouragecreativity and help provide information with whichto measure and reward the performance ofemployees. The following is a transcript of anunsolicited comment from a member of the audienceduring discussions about ABTA at NCSL’s Chicagosession on Performance Based Budgeting.

“I’m Sandy Milner from the State ofFlorida. I’m with the LegislativeAdministrations Office. During this(ABTA implementation) process I waswith the Department of Corrections andJustice Department. Staff from itsprospective, at first we were really fightingit and didn’t want to do it. But, once youdo it from a State agency’s perspective–for instance I work on Probation andParole, you realize you are going to go outto see this probationer so many times amonth. That would have gone on forever.

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And then all of a sudden you realize whatit costs and you’re thinking, how could wehave done it better? Then we realizedthese people were spending too much timein the office inputting data rather thanseeing probationers and making morevisits. And for what a laptop would cost,that little bit of extra cost, they weremaking a lot more contacts every month.And then, when we were told to see aprobationer six more times, we knewexactly how much more money wasneeded for that to happen. So, you know,we got competitive within the agency totry and do a better job. The employeeswere doing their job better and it wasreally good.”

As a budgeting tool, ABTA provides the basisfor prioritizing spending and can be used to ensurethat provisions of its accountability and policy-making components are implemented. Thefollowing anecdote concerning highway safetyimprovements is an example of how all three of thesecomponents work together to result in greateraccountability and efficiency.

When I was first elected, in addition toimplementing better government accountability, Iwanted to initiate improvements to a dangerous two-lane state highway known as “Bloody SR 520.”Necessary improvements had been ignored for yearsbecause the legislature could not or would not fundany part of the $40+ million dollar project.

State Road 520 intersects a four-lane toll road.The toll road had long been paid for, but DOT’s 20-cent tollbooths remained in place to generate seedmoney for other toll roads elsewhere in the state.But, existing statutes do allow revenue from tollroads to be used for improvements to local roadsthat intersect or service toll roads, such as two-laneSR 520.

When the Department of Transportationcompiled an ABTA snapshot, it revealed an averagecost of 19-cents to collect each toll. And, theDepartment’s work plan that revealed a $5 millionplan was in the works to improve the safety andefficiency of the 20-cent tollbooth. When I objected

to this proposal as not cost effective, I was advisedthat the toll was scheduled for an increase to 25-cents, which still would not amortize theimprovements plus the labor-intensive operationsnecessary to run the toll booths 24 hours a day, sevendays a week.

The Orange County Expressway Authority wasoperating a safe, modern, efficient, and almostcompletely automated $1.00 toll collection facilityseveral miles away. I negotiated a deal to have theExpressway Authority collect the 25-cent toll for theDepartment of Transportation and ear mark therevenue to bond the addition of two additional lanesfor SR 520.

Today the Expressway Authority collects $1.25per toll of which it remits 25 cents to be used locallyfor bonding the cost of widening SR 520 to fourlanes, eliminating another demand on the state’sbudget. Now travelers will be safer. Additionally,the old, inefficient, and dangerous 25-cent tollboothshave been torn down, eliminating a hugeinconvenience for motorists and a waste oftaxpayers’ money.

Playing telephone tag with a bureaucrat’s voicemail added several months to the implementationof the aforementioned project. It was the last strawin a litany of similar experiences that led to thepassage of Florida Statute 110.1082, which outlawsthe abusive use of voicemail by state employees.

Many other benefits have resulted from ABTA.

Money saved through efficiency can be used formore important purposes such as improvingeducation and thus reducing drug abuse, crime, theneed for welfare and other forms of human suffering.

Every state agency claims to be the most efficientand best at what it does. ABTA will make it easyfor every agency of your state to provide the evidencethat such claims are true.

ABTA creates something heretofore seldom seenin government: competition. The cost of commonactivities performed by similar agencies can finallybe compared on a level playing field. Those withlower activity costs will serve as models for others.The benefits will be profound and magnified as morestates adopt ABTA.

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Similarities in the order and nomenclature of lineactivities reflected by snapshots of agencies in everystate will one day be commonplace. States will alsoadopt common codes for line item activities tomaximize the access and benefits of sharedinformation. Whether states physically link all oftheir databases, or if data from each state is gatheredindividually through a third party, accessing theshared information will be effortless.

For example, 6000 could be the universallydedicated numerical series code for each state agencyperforming activities related to “Transportation.”Entering the hypothetical code number 6001 in adatabase search could instantly yield the cost ofmaintaining a lane-mile of road in every state. Whiledifferent highways have different levels or intensitiesof traffic, and a northern state’s weather conditionscan have a more dramatic effect on the cost ofmaintaining roads than that of a southern state,neighboring states should reflect similar regionalcharacteristics and thus common standards ofadjustments can be developed for comparisons.

Unlike surveys frequently provided forlegislative decision making, which are too oftensubjectively driven by proponents of one specialinterest or another, ABTA will ensure the objectivityand reliability of shared data. No more comparingapples to oranges. Apples will be compared toApples.

Similarly, gone will be the days when your state,and others, were ranked last in their funding of A, Bor C by the X, Y, or Z organizations because theymanipulated unreliable data.

One major caveat must be remembered. Thepurpose of ABTA is to make government moreaccountable–not to beat people over the head withdata. As is the case with most power tools, improperusage of ABTA can be very harmful.

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The Top Ten Reasons BureaucratsOppose ABTA

I’ve heard a multitude of objections to ActivityBased Total Accountability. A few objections havebeen voiced by our so-called performance budgetingexperts. Other objections have spilled from the lipsof fellow legislators. However, the overwhelmingmajority of objections have come from the mouthsand pens of bureaucrats.

A definition of a bureaucrat can be found in anydictionary. In order to do its work, governmentrequires the services of bureaucrats to performnecessary functions. However, some bureaucratsobstinately put their private agendas of personalsecurity and wished for superiority above the bestinterests of the public, their fellow employees, theiragency and its mission. We will hereafter refer tosuch people as problematic bureaucrats or PBs. Theten most frequently heard reasons PBs oppose ABTAare listed below.

REASON NUMBER 10

“It is A Great Idea. We’re Just Not Ready ToDo It Now.”

This is the most frequent reason I’ve heard PBsuse to stonewall ABTA.

ABTA is a change, and governments are slow tochange. Change is seldom embraced. More often,change is feared. We are not talking about aconspiracy theory; this is a fact of life.

Most bureaucrats enjoy the advantage of aninstitutional knowledge accumulated over manyyears of familiarity with the same limited subjectmatter that exceeds that of many legislators.Knowledge is power. Nowhere does such powerappear to reign more supreme than in the legislative

process. It is logical that PBs believe the morepowerful they are, and the less powerful legislatorsare, the better their bureaucracies are protected.

More than one state agency staff member hasconfided in me that his boss considers legislators tobe “temporary obstructionists” to his or her personalagenda. Such bureaucrats claim that “Legislatorsand their ideas come and go, but the institution andthe people who run it full-time remain, andultimately their will is done.” The term limitsadopted by many states have provided PBs of thisstripe with even greater assurance.

If you detect forthrightness and the courage tospeak his or her convictions, chances are you arenot in the presence of a PB. The most problematicbureaucrats I have encountered are gutless. Theymay be highly intelligent, charming, cunning, andpossess a plethora of other skills, but they are gutlessand will generally avoid confrontation at almost anycost. They are almost always insecure and fearrejection. Of course they fear the loss of their jobs,which could result from actions that are inconsistentwith those espoused by their superiors. This is whythey find the non-confrontational tactics of dilly-dallying, doing nothing and stalling to be theirweapons of choice to fight against greateraccountability.

Administrators of all sorts of organizations knowthat one of the best ways to prevent change is todelay change until proponents forget about it. Thetheory is based upon the reality that if onesuccessfully stalls change long enough, the perceivedthreat will eventually dissipate. The reality is thatPBs don’t usually have to delay change very longbefore the attention of their perceived enemy isdiverted to other more pressing issues or they leaveoffice. Either way, the PBs win the battle throughattrition. Time is definitely on their side. A goodexample is illustrated by bureaucratic lip service insupport of ABTA, which they have stealthy

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overshadowed by their efforts to endlessly delay itsimplementation.

It is an undeniable fact that most PBs feelthreatened by change. While they feel particularlythreatened by changes that might come from outsideof their agencies, they can usually be expected todiscourage change from the inside as well.

Recently, a friend recalled his first day on thejob of a legislative appropriations staff thirty yearsago. The then young college graduate’s firstconversation with his staff director was as follows:

Staff Director: “Randy, do you know why I calledyou into my office first thing this morning?”

Randy: “No, Sir.”

Staff Director: “Randy, you are a very bright youngman with a lot of promise. That is why we hiredyou.”

Randy: “Thank you, sir.”

Staff Director: “I am sure someone as bright as youwill recognize a lot of ways we can do things betterand will have a lot of good ideas on how toimprove this process.”

Randy: “Yes sir.”

Staff Director: “Keep them to yourself.”

Randy: “Yes sir.”

The national reputation enjoyed by many Floridavoters for their inability to execute a simple ballotis not hard to comprehend if you glance at the resultsproduced by their public education system over thepast thirty years. Before Jeb Bush was electedGovernor, the statewide graduation rate was below58% and half of the graduates could not even readon a third-grade level – statistics no one disputed.

Bush succeeded at getting legislation passedwhich, among such things as ending socialpromotions for children who could not read,provided for standardized testing of children to seehow much they were learning in their schools.Funding for individual schools was then tied toactual student performance.

The testing resulted in about eighty schools

failing to earn a passing grade. As a result, the failingschools received smaller increases in their fundingthan schools that received passing grades or better.During the next year, the failing schools involvedmore parents in their programs, began to tutor low-performing students and did whatever else theycould to teach children more. Within one year, thenumber of schools in the state that failed to receivepassing grades plummeted.

The point is not to gloat or debate the Governor’splan. The point is that the failing schools said theyalways planned to get parents more involved andtutor those students in need. However, those goodintentions were never turned into activities untilthere was direct accountability–and improvedfunding depended upon it.

Anytime someone tells you that you have a greatidea, but now is not the time to implement it, itusually means they feel threatened. Be prepared togo around, over, or through them.

REASON NUMBER 9

“Our Accounting System Is Not Set UpTo Handle It.”

I have been told that the budget of every statelegislature in the nation is input-based and theircomputers are not equipped to accommodate ABTA.This brings to mind a number of questions thatdemand answers. Who decided or on whose advicewere decisions made, to create systems withoutproper consideration for accountability? When werethe accounting systems established? How couldtheir designers have been so short sighted? Couldthey be upgraded to accommodate betteraccountability? Are they currently being upgradedwithout any provisions for tracking activities? Theanswers to these and similar questions will appearobvious after reading the other eight reasons.

Every agency should know what it does and whatit costs, with or without the assistance of state-of-the-art computer software. Certainly, utilization ofcompatible software would make the job easier.However, the lack of software is no excuse for thefailure to be accountable. Some of the largest state

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agencies in the nation have developed ABTAsnapshots, in short periods of time, without usingspecialized software to tell them what they shouldalready know. Good managers already know mosteverything needed to produce an accurate ATBAsnapshot of their agencies.

REASON NUMBER 8

“We Are Not Accustomed To Doing ItThat Way”

This excuse is usually a classic understatement.

Besides a good example and all the love possible,literacy is one of the best gifts we can give to ourchildren and their generation. State Senator SteveWise agrees. The former community collegeadministrator, while serving as chairman of theHouse Education Appropriations Committee,attempted to address illiteracy. He asked theadministration of the school district with the highestrate of illiteracy which resources would be requiredto ensure that every child with the functional abilityto read actually learned to do so. The administratorstook a year to study the question before giving Wisean answer. They essentially said, “We have no idea.Give us all you’ve got and we’ll try our best.”Unfortunately, this is the way most PBs areaccustomed to functioning. Fortunately, things arechanging.

Similar to many who may read this, I marriedabove myself. My spouse is a wonderful personand one of the most personally secure people I haveever known. Since she made me promise I wouldnever again seek office when I left the city council,she shocked me by suggesting I seek election to thelegislature seven years later. Katie and I havewitnessed the destruction of many legislators’marriages, in large part due to the misperceptionsalluded to in the story about Palm Sunday. Weagreed we would not allow the legislature to putdistance between us physically or intellectually.When I travel to the capitol city, Katie almost alwaysaccompanies me. While I do legislative work, shespends time with other legislative spouses and localfriends she has developed. One of Katie’s friends,who has been a fixture in the legislature for years,

repeated the following conversation she had with astaff attorney.

Sandra: “Katie and I went to Monticello and did…”

Attorney: “Katie who?”

Sandra: “Katie Posey.”

Attorney: “The Representative’s wife?”

Sandra: “Yes.”

Attorney: “What is she like?”

Sandra: “She is very nice.”

Attorney: “That’s a surprise.”

Sandra: “Why do you say that?”

Attorney: “I always figured she would have to be abrow-beaten woman or a raging bitch.”

Sandra: “Why would you think that?”

Attorney: “Because he is so mean. We had to drawstraws to see who would have to carry the waterin his office. Everyone is afraid of him.”

Sandra: “Well, I’ve never seen that side of him andfind that hard to believe.”

When I heard the story retold, one of mydaughters was present. She remarked that her dadhad been called a lot of things, but she could notrecall “mean” being one of them. How could thatbe explained she wondered? I asked if sheremembered her early teenage years, when shewanted to hang out at the mall and I wouldn’t lether? She remembered. “Well,” I said, “at the timeyou thought I was mean because I refused to let youhave your way.” I then explained to her that Sandra’sfriend was probably one of the attorneys whoexpected me to sign documents without readingthem, which was apparently the custom of mypredecessor. Or, she may have been the one whowas chagrined at my desire to set my own agendas.In either case, my refusal to act in the desired mannerwas perceived as a sign that I was mean. Any timeyou seek better accountability, you can expect to beperceived as mean.

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REASON NUMBER 7

“We Don’t Have The Time To Do It.”

Half-way through my four terms in the FloridaHouse, I was assigned to the General GovernmentAppropriations Committee, which had dominionover the budgets of thirteen state agencies. I askedeach of the agencies to prepare an ABTA “snapshot”of their agency. To say they blew me off would bean understatement. They almost totally ignored myrequests. To make matters worse, they were able togloat at least for a while, at the good-natured ribbingI was receiving from my colleagues over my“strange” request.

All of the agencies knew what I wantedinasmuch as I had previously filed legislation toimplement ABTA. Despite my in-flight pleas to theSpeaker and Senate President–as we oftencommuted back and forth to the Capitol in the sameplane, the legislation never progressed very far ineither chamber. Thus, the agencies were comfortablestalling compliance with my request indefinitely.“We’ll be delighted to get you the information youwant. However, our staff members are all under alot of pressure to get our budgets out and just don’thave the time to do it right now,” they would say.

After their budgets passed, they said they wereall “working on” fulfilling my requests.Unfortunately, as the year passed, they were againall focused on passing their agency’s budget for thenext year. My request did not appear to be on theradar screen of any of the agencies.

During the next legislative session, I again filedan ABTA bill. This one included a provision toreduce the budget of noncompliant agencies. Thenewest legislation essentially said that agencies thatfailed to submit an ABTA “snapshot” would havetheir budgets reduced by an amount equal to tenpercent of the funding they received the previousyear. “I might never pass an ABTA bill,” I thought,“but if I ever do, it will sober up a few PBs.”

The sixty-day legislative session was pastthe halfway mark and I was sitting in anAppropriations Committee meeting when the youngmessenger handed me a note. It said, “The Speakerwould like to see you ASAP.”

Speaker Webster was standing behind his deskwhen I arrived in his office. “Posey, I just re-readyour unit cost bill. It is awesome. It’s the best thingsince sliced bread. We’ve got to pass it” he said.“What took you so long to figure that out?” I asked.His response was similar to others I had heard before.“I don’t know,” replied Webster, “I was sitting therereading something totally unrelated and suddenly,out of nowhere, the light turned on.”

Within a couple of hours, word had spread thatmy ABTA bill was now a priority of the Speakerand was immediately being placed on the agenda ofits next committee of reference. The message wasclear that ABTA would pass out of the House thatyear. When I arrived at my office, there appeared tobe representatives from thirteen agencies waiting tosee me. They all asked the same question, “Exactlyhow is it you would like the form completed?”

Reasons numbered 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1notwithstanding, within just a few days, all thirteenagencies developed fairly accurate ABTA snapshotsthus nullifying reason number 7.

ABTA passed the House that year, but not theSenate. The following year former Speaker DanWebster was elected to the Senate. Working together,we passed an ABTA bill (HB1) in both chambers.Now it was only a matter of the Governor signingthe bill for ABTA to become law.

REASON NUMBER 6

“It Will Cost Too Much.”

“Hello, Bill?” asked the voice on the other endof the telephone, “This is Jeb.” After a few minutesof yada, yada, yada, the Governor apologeticallyproclaimed, “I’m sorry, but I am afraid I will haveto veto HB 1. The agencies claim it will cost themeach ninety thousand dollars a year to be incompliance.”

Fortunately, the bureaucrats’ last minute banzaicharge to defeat ABTA by misleading the Governorfell apart when the Governor learned that he hadbeen misinformed. The fact many agencies had justdemonstrated the ability to comply within a matterof days helped convince him not to veto HB 1. ABTAsaves money. It does not cost money.

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REASON NUMBER 5

“You Can’t Really Measure What We Do.”

Translation – we don’t want anyone to measurewhat we do. We’re afraid it might be held against us.

We have developed the ability to measure justabout anything. Men have accurately measured tinyatomic particles, which are too small to be seen bythe unaided human eye. Men have accuratelymeasured the Sun, which is 1.3 million times largerthan Earth. Men have accurately measured Vega,the smallest of the two eclipsing stars–yet still amillion times larger than our Sun in the constellationof Lyra. Men and women have mastered the abilityto measure almost anything we think it important tomeasure. However, some PBs claim we cannotaccurately measure the functioning government.

We’ve sent men to the moon and returned themsafely to earth. But, still there are bureaucratsclaiming it is not possible to quantify whatgovernment does and what it actually costs.

I remember purchasing my first financialcalculator, a hot new model that was sold in the mid1970s. It was three or four inches tall, four incheswide and six inches long–resembling the size andweight of a small brick. It cost $325. In recentyears, technology has advanced to the point where Icould buy a calculator that can perform many morefunctions, yet is the size of a credit card, and costsless than five dollars. People with apparent StoneAge mentalities nonetheless still claim it isimpossible to make government accountable.

Even the performance of the media can bemeasured. One South Florida newspaper annuallyrates the effectiveness of legislators. Most of mycolleagues perceive it to be fifty percent accurateand fifty percent sham –seemingly intended topromote favored local underachievers. Turn aboutshould be fair play. One year I compiled the namesof every member of the Capitol press corps. Besideeach name were five blocks, within which a gradeof one to twenty could be entered to rate theirperformance in the following categories.

! Integrity – Do you feel his or her material isgenerally factual and accurate?

! Style – Is his or her approach objective andnonpartisan?

! Content – Does his or her material seem todescribe the same meeting or session youattended?

! Informed – Does he or she appear to begenerally well informed about the process orissue?

! Decorum – Does he or she represent the mediain a professional manner?

Over 50% of my colleagues participated in thestudy. Tabulated results revealed that the mostrespected member of the press corps received asurprisingly high average grade of 98%. Legislatorsgave the lowest scoring member of the corps anaverage grade of 8%.

I’ve already drafted a similar survey forlawmakers to use in rating rate the performance oflobbyists and expect it to be equally illuminating.

As stated previously–anything can be measured.

Like it or not, ABTA will soon make it possibleto measure every government activity and cost. Theabsence of ABTA is the only reason this has nothappened already.

REASON NUMBER 4

“It Will Never Work. Other AgenciesWill Cheat.”

This excuse represents more evidence many PBsfeel threatened by ABTA. It may also reveal abureaucrat’s expectation that other agencies willperform better than his -not a legitimate reason toavoid ABTA.

Actually, of all the excuses for opposing theimplementation of ABTA, this is one of the lamest.

For reasons we have discussed, it would be mucheasier to manipulate information used to measuregoals, outputs, outcomes, or benchmarks. Beyondthe confusion over the meanings of such terms,measuring them could easily include innumerablesubjective determinations that could skew the resultsdramatically. Obviously, inaccurate or misleadinginformation are probable consequences.

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Conversely, ABTA makes manipulationsdifficult. The TOTAL of all activities is confined toa single page. That is the basis for Activity BasedTOTAL Accountability. In effect, we could say thatthe previously mentioned water balloon is nowconfined to a single page. As a result, it is moredifficult for the balloon to escape our grasp. That isthe beauty, and the necessity, of using a one-pagesnapshot.

The final budget, even though it may be amendednumerous times, will ultimately tell you how muchmoney has been appropriated for each agency.Audits will ultimately confirm how much moneyeach agency actually spent. The first function ofABTA is simply to make it clear which activitiesare performed and the cost of each activity.

This does not mean, however, that all agencieswill automatically submit accurate snapshots whenthey are mandated to do so. There is no guaranteethat agency reports will not be, intentionally orunintentionally, misleading. However, with ABTAerrors are relatively easy to notice and it will becomepossible for legislators to help lead agency budgetmanagers on the correct path

Lets again use the fictitious Department of FruitCounting for an illustration. Figure 1 has beenreprinted below. If you recall, it reflected the costsassociated with the activities performed by an agencywe presumed to be efficient.

a deficient report. They simply did not know howto submit a more accurate one. So it would becomea matter of sitting down with the good folks at theDoFC and trying to help them put things inperspective. The conversation might go somethinglike this.

ABTA Person: “How did you determine the line itemcosts to count each variety of fruit?”

DoFC Person: We added up the salaries and benefitsof all of the counters. Then we added in the costof their equipment and supplies.

ABTA Person: “You did a great job at your firstattempt at putting together a snapshot of the DoFC,but it will require a few minor adjustments.”

DoFC Person: “O.K. I’m listening.”

ABTA Person: “Did the $1.50 rent you paid in anyway relate to the counting of fruit?”

DoFC Person: “Yes, of course it did. That is theonly reason we rent our building.”

ABTA Person: “What proportion of your rent orbuilding was used for counting each of the fourvarieties of fruit?”

DoFC Person: “Our space is about evenly dividedamong the four of them.

ABTA Person: “Alright. Does it make sense to youthat the item you have listed separately as $1.50for rent can be divided by four–representing thefour groups of fruit counters that use the space, in

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DEPARTMENT OF FRUIT COUNTING.Total Expenditures $10.00(E)



Total (E) $ 10.00

Figure 1

But, the first snapshot submitted by the DoFCprobably would not have looked like Figure 1. Basedon my experience, the DoFC’s first attempt tocompile an ABTA snapshot would have resembledfigure 1X.

Understand, the DoFC did not purposely submit



Counting apples 20 @ $ .05 ea. $ 1.00Counting oranges 20 @ $ .05 ea. $ 1.00Counting lemons 20 @ $ .05 ea. $ 1.00Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .05 ea. $ 1.00Cost of Rent N/A $ 1.50Utilities N/A $ .25Telephone N/A $ .40Travel N/A $ 1.15Management and overhead N/A $ 2.70

Total (E) $ 10.00

Figure 1x

reality adding 37 ½ cents to the total cost ofcounting each variety of fruit? Or, that, if youdivide the amount of the rent by eighty –representing the entire number of items of fruitmeasured in the building, it would add a cost of1.875-cents to each piece counted?”

DoFC Person: “Yes, that makes perfect sense tome.”

ABTA Person: “OK. So we can mutually agree toamend the snapshot to reflect that the costpreviously assigned to ‘rent’ will be reassigned tothe unit cost of performing the agency’s activity.That sum will now be included in the actualactivity costs of measuring fruit, and we willidentify the new snapshot as Figure 2X.

DoFC Person: “Correct. Don’t forget to delete theline item previously identified as utilities now thatwe have included the cost in the activities.”

ABTA Person: “Done. Let’s call it new snapshotFigure 3X.”

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Counting apples 20 @ $ .06875 ea. $ 1.375Counting oranges 20 @ $ .06875 ea. $ 1.375Counting lemons 20 @ $ .06875 ea. $ 1.375Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .06875 ea. $ 1.375Utilities N/A $ .20Telephone N/A $ .80Travel N/A $ 1.00Management and overhead N/A $ 2.50

Total (E) $ 10.00

Figure 2x

DoFC Person: “OK”

ABTA Person: “How about the Utility cost of 20cents?”

DoFC Person: “Same as the rent.”

ABTA Person: “Alright. 20 cents divided by 80 unitsequals .0025-cents. That per unit amount can beadded to the cost of each individual fruit counted.The new total cost of measuring each piece of fruitnow becomes 7.125-cents each.

We can double-check our math by dividing the 20cents by the number of activities involved (4),which equals 5 cents. That is the amount we willadd to the total cost of each activity for a new totalof $1.425 each. Correct?”

DEPARTMENT OF FRUIT COUNTING.Total Expenditures $10.00(E)


Counting apples 20 @ $ .07125 ea. $ 1.425Counting oranges 20 @ $ .07125 ea. $ 1.425Counting lemons 20 @ $ .07125 ea. $ 1.425Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .07125 ea. $ 1.425Telephone N/A $ .80Travel N/A $ 1.00Management and overhead N/A $ 2.50

Total (E) $ 10.00

Figure 3x

DoFC Person: “OK. And you can do the same withthe telephone service. We make each group ofcounters log all long distance calls and on anannual basis, they all average out about the same.Let me see if I’ve got it right. Eighty pieces offruit divided by 80 cents is simply a matter ofadding 1 cent to the cost of counting each piece offruit. So the cost of counting each piece of fruithas now increased to .08125 cents. And bysplitting 80 cents among the 4 activities it resultsin an increased cost to them of 20 cents each andthe total cost of each activity now becomes $1.625.Now all I have to do is delete the old line item forthe telephone expenses and Figure 4X will becomplete.”



Counting apples 20 @ $ .08125 ea. $ 1.625Counting oranges 20 @ $ .08125 ea. $ 1.625Counting lemons 20 @ $ .08125 ea. $ 1.625Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .08125 ea. $ 1.625Travel N/A $ 1.00Management and overhead N/A $ 2.50

Total (E) $ 10.00

Figure 4x

ABTA Person: “What about travel expenses? Didall the counters do the same amount of travel?”

DoFC Person: “No, not really, the apple countersdid twice as much traveling as the others. Out ofthe dollar budgeted for travel, the receipts wouldshow the apple counters spent 40 cents and theothers spent 20 cents each. That means 2 centsmust be added to the cost of counting each applefor a unit cost of 10.125 cents each and a total of$2.025. The others need only to add a penny tothe cost of counting each piece of fruit, whichmakes their costs 9.125 cents each and brings theirtotal activity costs to $1.825 to be reflected inFigure 5x.”

activity. Of the 72 remaining managers, 12 areassigned to oversee the apple counters, and theother activities have 20 each assigned to them. Thesalaries of the employees in the 3 categories areall similar. How do we split that up?”

ABTA Person: Allocate ¼ of the 8 administrators =2 people, to each activity. Allocate ¼ of the 20assistants = 5 people, to each activity. Then addthem to the number of managers assigned to eachactivity. The numbers indicate management thatfocuses 19% of its resources on the apple countersand 27% of its resources on each of the other threeactivities. Use the same method to calculate theprorations as you did for the travel expenses andthe snapshot illustrated in Figure–6x will becomplete.

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Counting apples 20 @ $ .10125 ea. $ 2.025Counting oranges 20 @ $ .09125 ea. $ 1.825Counting lemons 20 @ $ .09125 ea. $ 1.825Counting grapefruit 20 @ $ .09125 ea. $ 1.825Management and overhead N/A $ 2.50

Total(E) $ 10.00

Figure 5x

ABTA Person: “Now, what exactly does the figurefor management and overhead expensesrepresent?”

DoFC Person: “It basically represents the salariesand fringe benefits of all our managementemployees, who do not count fruit. But, becausethe apple counters traveled to so many seminarsfor training, they did not need as much supervisionas the other three groups. That is why we can’tjust divide this cost equally among the activities.

ABTA Person: “What we need to know is how manymanagement employees you have at the DoFC?”

DoFC Person: “Exactly 100.”

ABTA Person: “How would you relate the activitiesof the employees to the various activities?”

DoFC Person. We have 8 administrators whooversee all four activities. And we have 20assistant administrators, with 5 assigned to each




Total (E) $ 10.00

Figure 6x

Would it still be possible for bureaucrats toattempt to cheat by underreporting the cost of theiractivities? No.

The total sum of the agency’s expenditures listedon the top line (D) and the total cost of activitieslisted at the bottom (E) must match–Period. Theamount of line item activities must also add up tothe same total amounts shown as (E &D).–Period.That means every expenditure must be accountedfor by some line item activity appearing on the onepage snapshot. –Period. If a bureaucrat in charge ofapple counting tried to underreport the cost of thoseactivities by 20 % the snapshot would show the unitcost of counting 20 apples was 10 cents instead ofthe actual 12½ cents. Thus, instead of the actual$2.50, the total activity cost would be shown as $2.00as shown in Figure-7x.

In the above case the discrepancy would beobvious. We know the agency received $10 but the

snapshot only justifies activities that account for$9.50. The DoFC would not attempt to submit asnapshot that did not balance and would flush outthe problem itself. However, if the agency supportedthe underreporting of apple counting costs, theunderreported costs would have to appear in one ofthe other activities. If the underreported cost ofcounting apples was shifted to the orange counters,the DoFC snapshot would resemble Figure-8x.

to balance the books of accountability is somethingto be feared by bureaucrats. Sooner or later, whenthe books of accountability are balanced, bureaucratswho manipulate data will be discovered!

ABTA is not a silver bullet that will instantlycreate an accountable government. But it is thefoundation for better accountability.

REASON NUMBER 3

“We Don’t Need It.”

Problematic Bureaucratic Translation: “We justdon’t want to do it because greater accountabilitythreatens our senses of superiority and security.”

Appropriate response: “I accept your resignation.”

Such bureaucratic logic is understandable,although it does not pass the straight face test. Fewpeople want to be held more accountable.Government bureaucrats are not exceptions. Thefact is, the only agencies that do not need ABTA arethose that already employ such practices.

You should enthusiastically assist anybureaucrat, who is blissfully arrogant anddisrespectful enough to oppose ABTA, to findsomewhere else to obstruct progress.

REASON NUMBER 2

“It’s Micro Management!”

ABTA is a lot of things, but it is not micromanagement. It is a tool to assist management anddecision makers. It also serves as a way to ensurethat management and decision-makers understandhow money is spent. It is also the evidence thatassures citizens their government is well managed,but it is not micro management.

One of my first challenges in local governmentwas to understand the city budget. To assist mybetter understanding of the city’s budgets, I obtainedcopies of those adopted in three preceding years.They were not easy to assimilate. The order of lineitems was subject to change from year to year andso was the nomenclature. In one budget an activitymight be called a “pot hole fund.” The next year thesame activity might be identified elsewhere as “street

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Total (E) $ 9.50

Figure 7x




Total (E) $10.00

Figure 8x

Unlike current procedures, ABTA’s somewhatself-balancing mandate that every expenditure mustrelate to a specific activity would make it easy foran auditor to discover such a manipulation. Ofcourse, when the information eventually caught theeye of the orange counters, they would become veryvocal about the inference that they were lessefficient–especially if there were any financialincentives in place.

Doubtless, some bureaucrats might attempt tomanipulate ABTA data anyway. However, asagencies adopt ABTA policies, it will become moredifficult to perpetuate such fraud. An embezzler’sworst nightmare is a competent auditor. The ability

repaving.” In the third, it was referred to as “RoadR & R.” The only way I could put everything inperspective was to cut out each of the line itemswith scissors and tape them around my family roomwall, where I could adjust the order into a logicalsequence. In the process, I discovered an enterprisefund for the Waste Water Treatment Plant thatprovided for a substantial transfer of funds, foradministrative and legal services, to theAdministrative Budget. However, it never appearedas revenue in the Administrative Budget - ananomaly that was never disclosed in any of theannual audits. The first ordinance I proposedrequired management to use the same order andnomenclature for all future budgets, and to includeall revenues. The term ‘micro Management’ did notenjoy widespread usage at the time. So thebureaucrat opposed to my new policy had to settlefor accusing me of “Interfering with Management.”

REASON NUMBER 1

“Not Enough People Care About It.”

As this is being written, it appears there are moreoutspoken advocates for pregnant pigs than thereare proponents of ABTA. In 2002 a total of 488,722registered voters petitioned to have the treatment ofpregnant pigs regulated in Florida’s stateconstitution. Over 2,553,140 (or 54.6 %) of thevoters approved the measure. There were nopetitions filed to make government moreaccountable.

There are lobbyists for every special interestimaginable. In the unlikely event someone claimedthey were not a member of a special interest group,there are public interest groups who would claim torepresent them. However, before the passage ofABTA, there was no overt support to promote it froma single lobbyist or organization.

As one of our greatest leaders has expressed itmany times, America is an experiment atrepresentative self-government. The survival of ournation is not guaranteed. Our government is a workin progress. Visiting Denmark, my family and Idined in a restaurant four times older than our nation.On the timescales of many nations, ours is an infant.

The reality of “representative self-government”

reminds me of the newly elected lawmaker, wholooked around the Capitol in awe, was moved bythe beauty and splendor of opening day ceremonies,and wondered how he, Joe Blow, from Podunk, hadactually been elected to such an august body. Aftera couple months, however, he began to wonder howmost of his colleagues had been elected. He wassurprised by the reality of representative self-government.

Most simply stated, representative self-government means that everyone should berepresented. In the same sense ABTA serves toprovide “snapshots” of government agencies,legislators provide “snapshots” of the people whoelected them. Without a doubt, our experiment atself-government has succeeded in producinglawmakers who represent the wide spectrum of ourcitizens from one extreme to another.

There are bright lawmakers and some are not.There are tall lawmakers and shorter ones. Thereare thick lawmakers and thin ones. Some are malesand some are females. They come in all colors.Some are wealthy and some are not. Some workhard and some do not. Some are conservative andsome are liberal. Some are honest and some arenot. For example, the House Speaker during myfirst term was sent to prison. The first legislator totell me I wasn’t very bright was also sent to the sameprison. In contrast, it was in the Legislature that Imet Dan Webster, the most honorable person I know.Lawmakers do share one thing in common. Theyall have agendas. The agenda of some seems simplyto amount to being or becoming something. Theagenda for others is to do something and for somethat includes opposing ABTA.

Some legislators oppose ABTA because they fearit will also make them more accountable and it will.Others apparently feel it is acceptable forgovernment to spend two dollars, when one dollarwill do.

“State work force wanes” read the captionabove a front-page newspaper story. Thetext contained an illuminating quote by alocal legislator. “Our worst fears havecome true,” she said. “The population ofFlorida is getting larger and the state workforce is getting smaller.”

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What can you do?

History clearly proves that widespread adoptionand implementation of ABTA will not occur simplybecause it is the right thing to do. Too much timeand public resources have already been wastedwaiting for that to happen. It will take a fight – arevolution if you will, by committed proponents forwhom this book was written.

Join a Challenger Candidate Revolution. It hasbeen reported that since 9-11-02, every state issuffering a budget crisis. Some of them are massive.The need to maximize government efficiency hasnever been greater. It is time for the next generationof responsible citizens to step forward and enlist inthis important “solution revolution.”

Join a Tax Payers Revolution. StateRepresentative Rob Wallace (R-Tampa) is perhapsthe best friend Florida’s taxpayers have ever had.With tireless abandon, Wallace has fought to limitgovernment’s insatiable appetite to extract every lastounce of revenue possible from the people who earnit. Arrogant legislators by the dozens openlysnickered at his attempts to make government livewithin the same means as its working families.

Join a Common Ground Revolution. It does notmatter if you are a Democrat, a Republican or anIndependent – a conservative, a moderate or a liberal.Government inefficiency, caused by a lack ofaccountability, is probably shortchanging yourconstituency. Unless you desire more government,simply for the sake of more government, you shouldrecognize that the need for ABTA rests on commonground.

How do you join these revolutions? There is noformal application or approval. You simply decideit is time for you to do something for the cause andyou respond. Call your lawmakers to find out ifthey have ever sponsored or cosponsored legislation

to implement ABTA. If they have, they deserve allthe support you can give them. If they haven’t, letthem know of your intention to hold themaccountable. You can volunteer to work in thecampaign of a challenger candidate or financiallysupport one with a contribution. If you have fire inyour belly, you can position yourself to be moreeffective.

You cannot pass ABTA on the golf course, atthe Garden Club, in the local pub, or from your easychair. However, you might be able to pass ABTA ifyou were elected to your state’s legislature.Obviously, this is no small task. There are countlessbooks, tapes, seminars and consultants that can helpyou get elected. However, understanding ABTA isan advantage money cannot buy. There is no limitto the political advantage you could gain over anopponent–presumably an incumbent legislator, whodoes not understand ABTA. You will discover manyplaces to “slash waste” your opponent seems to findacceptable–inasmuch as he or she probably has madeno effort to improve accountability. How cansomeone claim to care about the needs of children,working families, veterans and seniors while wastingmoney that could be used to help them? Whileaccountability is not an exciting, sexy, sensationalor urgent front page issue such as Education, Crime,Health Care or the Environment, it is the underlyingsolution to effectively funding or otherwise dealingwith such issues and is the best ammunition forsoldiers of the solution revolution.

Remember, you are not just another critic. Youare not just another candidate with good intentions.Voters want to elect leaders “with a plan” and youhave one. The more relentless, focused and freefrom the fear of rejection that you are the greaterare your chances for success.

Once elected, you will need to ensure that yourstaff understands ABTA. Hopefully, you will havethe support of many other freshmen legislators who

Chapter 7

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will share your interest in making a difference. Ifenough people have joined the revolution, by thetime you are elected, your Governor and legislativeleaders should also be more knowledgeable andenthusiastic about implementing ABTA. Being aneffective legislator is much like being an effectivecandidate. If you are relentless, stay focused anddon’t fear criticism, you will be successful.

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Acknowledgements

It is with heartfelt appreciation the following people are acknowledgedfor their support of good government and improved accountability.Without their help and support ABTA would not have been developed,implemented or best utilized.

Robert W. McMillan, Senator Dan Webster, Kathy Mears, Eric Caron,David Wargin, Duane Parde, Ron Snell, Gerry Ryan, Russ Cyphers,Representative Rob Wallace, Patrick Gavin, John MacIver, Matt Dupree,James P. Rhea, Jim Ash, Dr. Mark Rutland, Governor Jeb Bush, TheresaTinker, Donna Dyal, Tom Roth, Kara Collins-Gomez, Patrick D. Smith,John Phelps, George Roe, Sandy Sartin, Representative John Quinones,Jeanne Ruppert, Gil Melanson, B.W. Simpkins, Bruce Deardoff, RichardCarson, my family and the many other supporters whose selflesssacrifices enable and encourage greater government accountability.

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Notes

Nashville, TN – The nation’s largest nonprofit, bipartisanmembership association of state lawmakers –theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council, named FloridaState Representative Bill Posey “Legislator of the Year”at its 26th Annual Meeting. ALEC described Posey’sstrategic plan for Activity Based Total Accountability as“The best legislation to come out of any state capitol inover a decade.” Shown presenting Posey with his awardis Arizona Senate President Brenda Burns, ALEC’sNational Chair.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush signs legislation implement-ing provisions of Activity Based Total Accountability

Author removes a crown presented to him by Senatecolleagues after the historic passage of the Florida Elec-tions Reform Act of 2001, which has been used as aguide by many states following the 2000 presidentialelection debacle.

Former Florida House Speaker Dan Webster was primesponsor of ABTA legislation after his election to theFlorida Senate

Documents

(ABTA) - Bill Posey for Congress