Going Rogue: An American Life (41 page)

ask about his communication with lawmakets because we were

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getting mixed messages ftom city officials regarding their project priorities, and I was ready to announce rhe budget Slouching

against the wall, he assured us that, yeah, he had everything under control, mission accomplished. The fact that his shirt was buttoned one button off and his shirttail was poking through his open fly didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Trying not to telegraph the last problem with my eyes, I said,

“Legislators
do
know I’m going to be making a lot of cuts, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they know why you got elected.”

“They’re fine with a whole lot of vetoes that are coming?” Meg said.

they undetstand my funding criteria from the letter you sent-right?” I added.

His eyes subtly widened, as if he were just remembering something important he had neglected to do. “Yeah,” he said. “They’re all set … um … gotta go …” He hustled off, one of the last times we saw the fellow.

My budget priorities weren’t all about slashing. We increased education funding and committed to putting a billion dollars into where I wanted to go with “forward funding” education so that local school districts could know how many state dollars they could count on every year. We also increased school services for childten with special needs and beefed up funding fot public safety officers to handle alcohol abuse and domestic violence in rural villages. But even with increased funding for public safety and infrastructure projects, by the time we had reptioritized the budget, I had made the largest veto totals in the state’s history. It wasn’t the easy path, but it was the right path.

But it soon became obvious just how little the legislative director had done to inform the legislature this was coming. And we

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PALIN

got a taste of state-level political tutf wars, as legislators threw their heads back and howled.

“Palin blindsided us!”

“If you’te going to change the rules, you should have told us!”

“It was only a hundred thousand dollars for a blueberry farm!

What’s the big deal?”

“Where’s my killer.shtub money?”

As legislative staffers scrambled to locate defibrillator paddles to resuscitate their bosses, press releases showered down like propaganda flyers before an air raid:
Palin destroys city! Women and children in peril!

Governor vetoes animal shelter expansion! Imminent death for
puppies and kittens!

Later we learned the legislative ditector had been too busy with his personal affairs to attend to much state business. He. had spent years in Juneau’s political circles; we had thought we needed someone with that kind of experience to get our new administration off the ground. So much for my idea that I needed to hire an “insider.” Lesson learned.

Not long after we released the budget, with walking papers hand, he quickly popped up as a staffer for a legislaror who immediately transformed from one of the administration’s biggest allies to one of our sharpest critics.

Going Rogue

7

Prior ro the election it had been revealed that BP had been trying to save money for years by cutting corners on oil pipeline maintenance on the North Slope. This was very serious: leaks and spills from corroded pipelines were all too common and harmed the environment plus led to production slowdowns. So one of my firsr priorities was to establish the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office (PSIO). With the creation of the PSIO, Alaska became the first state to require industry operarors to document their compliance with maintenance and quality assurance standards, and to share that information with the state. Unfortunately, the . next year the House Finance subcommittee gutred more rhan a rhird of rhe PSIO budger. I foughr ro get ir resrored and finally succeeded.

To avoid rhe caterwauling and turf wars ofour first-year budger process, we set up a new process for assembling rhe capiral budget heading inro my second year. This time lawmakers knew rhat when we said cuts, we meanr curs. Wirh the price of a barrel of oil at record highs, we had a major revenue surplus. My fiscal plan included saving rhe money before lawmakers spent ir, and finding a way to give it back ro the because it was theirs

ro begin wirh. Being a fiscal conservative during a time of scarcity isn’t nearly as difficult as being one a time of plenty.

It’s easy ro tighten the belt when you have no money ro order a feasr. Using our surplus, we paid down debt and set aside billions of dollars in savings for rhe day when the price of oil would plummet. Again I wanred lawmakers to prioritize their requesrs, and

I promised ro veto. This new budgeting process had ro be open and rransparenr to fulfill my promise of changing the way business was done. Many legislators

resisted rhe idea. I

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SARAH

PALIN

wanted them to encourage town hall meetings in their districts so that constituents could weigh in and help prioritize the spending of public money,
their
money. By the third year, many legislators were sitting down with me and explaining each line-item request ahead of my vetoes. It became a very good process to prioritize public monies.