Preventing the Next State Budget Crisis
1:00AM
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Opening Keynote: “The Hows, the Whys, and the Consequences of State and Local Deficits”
Panel Session #1 - Forecasting Revenues and Expenditures: Budget Scenarios for States
Panel Session #2 - “Best State Budgeting Practices: Volcker Alliance Assessments and Where Improvement is Needed”
Panel Session #3 - “The New World of Revenue Volatility: Implications for Budgets and Markets”
Lunch Keynote - "Reflections on Fiscal Crises"
Pane Session #4 - “Stress Testing Pensions, Revenues, and Reserves: Uncovering Hidden Budgetary Risks”
Panel Session #5 - “Deferred Infrastructure Maintenance: How to Measure It, How to Finance It”
The Volcker Alliance and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago hosted a one-day conference on “Preventing the Next State Budget Crisis: Improving Budget Transparency to Bolster Fiscal Sustainability,” on Monday, September 17, 2018, from 8:45 AM to 3:00 PM (CDT) at the Chicago Fed.
The conference examined ways that state governments may be able to avert future budgetary crises like those that swept across the Midwest and entire US during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and in its immediate aftermath. Indeed, with the current US recovery now the third-longest on record, states have a unique opportunity to prepare themselves for any future weakening in economic activity and revenue. Critical to this prevention effort are improvements in the way that states estimate revenues, expenditures, deferred maintenance of infrastructure, and the cost of providing pensions and other post-retirement benefits to public employees.
At the conference, experts from the Volcker Alliance and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago joined with others from academia, industry, state legislatures, and policy institutions to explore how states can better manage risks to their revenues through long-term forecasting, stress-testing, and improved management of fiscal reserves as well as publicly owned physical assets. Using data from the Volcker Alliance’s assessments of all fifty states’ budget processes as well as examples drawn from several states’ own experiences, the expert panelists identified best practices others may be able to adopt to better divine the possible course of future revenues and expenditures.
Speakers at the event included:
Robert Inman
Richard King Mellon Professor of Finance, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
William Glasgall
Senior Vice President and Director, State and Local Initiatives, The Volcker Alliance
Andrew Haughwout
Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Rick Mattoon
Senior Economist and Economic Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Richard Ravitch
Former Lieutenant Governor of New York
Dan White
Director of Government Consulting and Public Finance Research, Moody’s Analytics
This event was presented in partnership with:
The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
The Pew Charitable Trusts
And with the cooperation of:
Government Finance Officers Association
Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs
National Association of State Budget Officers
National Council of State Legislators
