Navigator Award Finalist: Jonathan Ball, Chief Legislative Fiscal Analyst, Utah State Legislature
Budgetary stress testing is an important tool that allows Utah to stand on a stable fiscal foundation.
This is the 11th in a series of profiles on the 50 finalists for Route Fifty’s Navigator Awards program. The first 10 finalists were from the Government Allies and Cross-Sector Partners category. Finalists 11-20 were from the Agency and Department Leadership category. Finalists 21-30 were from the Executive Leadership category. Finalists 31-40 were from the Next Generation category. Finalists 41-50 were from the Data and IT Innovators category. Explore our complete list of 50 finalists.
Headlines about state budgets, especially in the years following the Great Recession, often involve bad news like unanticipated expenses, drained rainy day funds or revenue projections that are out of touch with reality.
Utah, like all states, faces its own budget challenges, but thanks to prudent fiscal management and forecasting, the state government—often regarded as one of the best run in the nation—isn’t normally unprepared for surprises.
As Route Fifty has previously profiled, Utah is a pioneer in using so-called stress tests to see how its state budget could stand up to a variety of fiscal conditions, including lower-than-forecasted revenues, higher-than-anticipated costs and economic recession, among other variables involving volatility. The federal government uses stress tests to assess the fiscal stability of big banks, but the type of stress testing used by Utah—a collaboration between the governor’s Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst— is believed to be the first of its kind by a state government.
As Utah’s chief legislative fiscal analyst, Jonathan Ball leads the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst. Route Fifty is pleased to name him as a Navigator Award finalist in the Agency and Department Chiefs category for his work and dedication to ensure his state has a sound budgetary foundation.
According to a Navigator Award nomination submission:
In addition to studying volatility, Mr. Ball and his staff have worked to support legislation that incorporates historic trend analysis in the Utah budget process, developed and implemented a fiscal dashboard for the state that puts updated budget and revenue information directly in the hands of citizens, and has spoken to national groups of legislators and staff at the National Conference of State Legislators about the ways in which Utah continues to pursue innovation in state fiscal policy. These are complex and abstract issues with major real-world policy implications, and Mr. Ball is an exceptionally effective state legislative fiscal director when it comes to communicating these issues to policy audiences and making the case for their value.
Thanks to Ball’s work, if the unexpected does happen, Utah’s budget will be better prepared to weather a fiscal storm that could easily sink other state governments.
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Seattle.
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