How Stress Testing Can Inform State Budgets: Examining Utah s Approach
States benefit from conducting budget stress tests during a recession, given the competing demands for limited resources facing leaders at times of fiscal distress, according to Utah’s legislative fiscal analyst, Jonathan Ball.
Testing a range of potential economic scenarios is key: Budget stress tests help decision-makers “know how bad things will get and think about what you would do in the situation, hopefully avoiding crisis-driven decision-making,” Ball told participants in an Oct. 22 webinar sponsored by Pew.
Ball and other speakers at the event Maddy Oritt, staff economist in Ball’s office, and Juliette Tennert, chief economist at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah stressed the need for long-term planning and analysis to deal with problems caused by this recession driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.