Washington Post – Fiscal notes, legislative analysis, cost estimates — call it what you want, but the official price tags attached to bills are a key part of legislating at every level of government. Read
Many states have dedicated legislative analysts, and virtually every state has at least some way of estimating the fiscal impact of proposed policies. But West Virginia’s methods may be seriously off the mark, according to a new report.
“When legislators or taxpayers need an estimate of how much new legislation will cost or save the state, the information they receive is often biased, inaccurate, incomplete or flawed,” writes Sean O’Leary, a policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy and the report’s author
