Trigg strikes back!

Preston Trigg came to see us again today.  He gave a quick rundown on how to read a budget.  It was surprising to see how fast I learned in that hour. 

He made it clear that a budget is really quite simple, not as complicated as it may look.  He told us a budget is simply money in and money out.  He even stressed his quote from his last visit, "follow the money."  Since it's very important for a reporter to understand a budget, we kept that simple lesson in our head that it's really just money in and money out.  All the rest falls into place.

Well, at least it should.  So if it isn't falling into place, that's where we journalists come in. 

Trigg reassured us that the law requires every government agency to have a public budget.  Private businesses don't have to make their budgets public, though. 

We also learned that it's okay to ask the budget officials questions if something is unclear to us.  Trigg said budget officials are often a journalist's best ally if the journalist stays on their good side. 

Trigg also said that the summary (at the top of the budget) may make it easier to see the big things to look for but the summaries only contain what they want us to see.  They may leave some big (perhaps unpopular) changes out of that summary that could affect a lot of people. 

Other than that, a budget is pretty cut and dry.  The thing journalists need to look for is the major increases and decreases from the previous fiscal year (that I learned starts from Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30).