Stepping on Legislators’ Toes Is All in a Day’s Work

Chances are you’ve never heard of Elizabeth Hill. Even some of her bosses--the 120 members of the state Legislature--have trouble remembering her name.

But don’t be fooled by that low profile, because the numbers and words flowing out of Hill’s office change policy, challenge budgets and sometimes drive California governors blind with rage.

Pioneered 59 years ago in California and copied by creators of the Congressional Budget Office in Washington, Hill’s job as legislative analyst is to advise legislators on matters of money and policy. She’s been their--and our--watchdog for 13 years, a snoop paid by the Legislature to prowl the massive state budget and bureaucracy in search of waste, bad ideas and dirty tricks.

It’s always a fruitful quest--and never fails to make someone mad.

In the late 1980s, Hill irked then-Gov. George Deukmejian by finding a budget deficit that his staff insisted wasn’t there. (It was.)

A decade later, she annoyed Pete Wilson by proposing a welfare reform program radically at odds with his--a proposal that helped shape the system ultimately signed into law.

Now Gray Davis is getting a taste of Hill’s medicine. When the governor said the state should exert greater control over schools to improve performance, Hill disagreed. Only local oversight, she said, will bring true reform.

Then Davis struck a gambling deal with Indian tribes, assuring Californians that the number of slot machines in the state wouldn’t grow by much. Hill piped up again, predicting the number of machines would quintuple.

More recently, Hill’s economic forecaster estimated that state revenues would exceed the governor’s early predictions by a whopping $3 billion over the next two years. Last week, Davis’ financial advisors quietly endorsed that view.

“She calls them like she sees them,” says state Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco). “Does she [tick] people off? Sure, that’s her job.”

In Sacramento, where everyone has a political agenda, Hill is an island of impartiality. That makes her one of the most powerful unelected players in town.

“Her talent, integrity and independence make her priceless,” said state Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara).

Republicans agree: “When you want information that’s unbiased--without partisan spin--the first place you go is Liz Hill’s shop,” said Sen. Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga.

Despite such praise, Hill’s reports invariably land her in the hot seat. She says the nasty phone calls, the stream of profanities from somebody whose program she’s torn apart, are an occupational hazard that “comes with the territory.”

But while her investigations may peeve their targets, her calm, polite demeanor never could. She is, in fact, an oddity in Sacramento, a humble figure in a place where the trappings of power are displayed as evidence of one’s importance.

She has no press secretary, and schedules her appointments herself. She eats lunch at her desk most days, and her office, while comfortable, lacks the grandeur of those occupied by other public servants who make $106,000 a year.

Perhaps most telling is the Legislative Analyst Office Web site (www.lao.ca.gov), which makes virtually no mention of the person who runs the show. Under a section titled “recent staff awards,” Hill even lists an honor bestowed upon a staff member above one given to her.

That self-effacing style, combined with a meticulous approach that prompts her to read every report leaving her office, has helped Hill, 50, endure in a universe where perpetual turnover is now the rule. She has been the legislative analyst for 13 years, and has no plans to leave.

“Especially now with term limits, she’s a crucial repository of institutional memory,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible fiscal policy. “She helps the Legislature, with its many newcomers, keep the executive branch honest.”

Governing magazine echoes that view, praising Hill for helping “neophyte, term-limited legislators get a quick grasp of the major challenges facing them each year.” In 1997, the magazine named Hill one of the nation’s top 10 public officials, an honor she shared with bigwigs like Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson.

The only criticism of Hill comes from those who wish she would push a little harder and talk a little louder.

“She’s very cautious, and I think the impact of their work might be greater if they looked more at the social consequences of policy,” the winners and losers, said one Capitol insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.

One former analyst who worked for Hill shares that view, saying that her tendency to “never dare go out on a limb” sometimes prevented “certain controversial findings from getting in my reports.”

“She’s very conservative, and I think that hurts in the sense that [legislators] don’t pay attention to the office as much as they should,” the former staffer said.

Hill acknowledges that even some of her current staff wishes she had a bolder style. But she believes any move that might portray her as a crusader would undermine her credibility as an independent, just-the-facts resource for Republicans and Democrats alike.

Craig Cornett, one of the most senior and respected analysts in the office, says that his boss may be wise to stick with her less aggressive approach: “When you serve the Legislature, you don’t want to get in the way of their headlines.”

Trim with short, graying hair and a penchant for conservative, tailored clothes, Hill lives a short drive from the Capitol with her husband, a Sacramento State University administrator, and two children. This winter, her family is hosting an exchange student from Sweden. She enjoys tennis, gardening and traveling.

Raised in Modesto, Hill’s early career plans did not envision a life in government. She worked summers at a tomato cannery--”on the fruit cocktail belt”--and during her undergraduate years at Stanford grew interested in international nutrition.

But then came a master’s degree in public policy from UC Berkeley, and a Fulbright scholarship, which took her to Sweden. She studied transportation policy at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and a bureaucrat was born.

In 1976, Hill joined the analyst’s office, and it wasn’t long before she was making waves. In 1978, she questioned the private use of state cars by 229 Justice Department employees who said they needed the vehicles at home in case of emergencies.

Hill discovered that the cars were never used for emergencies, prompting the Legislature to change policies on the use of state vehicles and cut half a million dollars from the department’s budget.

When Legislative Analyst Bill Hamm retired in 1986, Hill applied for the top job. The only woman among four finalists (and eight months pregnant at the time), she got the nod from the 16-member Assembly-Senate committee that oversees the office.

The legislative analyst was born of legislators’ desire to have their own trusted advisor on financial matters--independent of the governor. California was the first to establish such a position in 1941. It has been copied by numerous states and inspired the creation of its rough federal equivalent, the Congressional Budget Office.

Before the Legislature had its own partisan staff, the analyst wielded tremendous power. Over time, that influence has waned, especially when the office had its staff and funding chopped in half after a 1990 ballot initiative slashed the Legislature’s budget.

To survive, Hill was forced to make hard choices. Among them was the decision to scrap one of the office’s major roles--the analysis of every piece of legislation with a fiscal impact.

Today, the legislative analyst is an office that is somewhat obscure, easy to overlook. Indeed, its name has prompted Capitol tour guides to joke that the Legislature has its own in-house psychiatrist.

Such humor aside, Hill’s troops are vital this time of year. In February, they will deliver their annual piece de resistance--a voluminous dissection of the sprawling state budget. Bureaucrats live in fear of this document because Hill’s analysts invariably expose some excess or inefficiency.

When they’re not scrutinizing the budget, the analysts respond to legislators’ inquiries--about the efficiency of a certain government program, or the fiscal impact of a specific bill.

In deciding what topics or state departments to explore, Hill has complete discretion. Some of her choices are shaped by staff members and their interests, others by the obvious social issues confronting California.

Hill’s office is also charged with supplying analyses for all the state ballot measures--a hefty load with an election like the March primary, when voters will decide on 23.

It is difficult to gauge Hill’s influence and effectiveness, but she says she feels successful if her reports merely “influence the debate.”

The bipartisan praise she receives provides a clue to what others think. This year, Senate Republicans used Hill’s data to develop their own set of budget proposals. Brulte, for one, calls her revenue assumptions “very, very reliable,” and forwards hundreds of copies of her reports to his constituents back home.

Geoff Long, chief consultant for the Assembly Appropriations Committee, offered another appraisal. By exposing waste and saving taxpayers millions of dollars, he says, “they’ve paid for themselves many, many times over.”

Hill is grateful for such praise, but also knows that working for 120 thin-skinned bosses means the mood can sour quickly.

“I’ll never forget what they told us in graduate school: Always keep your bags packed.”

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Hill’s Views

Irritating powerful people is an “occupational hazard that goes with the territory,” says state Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill. She is frequently at odds with governors, interest groups and others whose programs and legislation she scours for evidence of waste and inefficiency.

EXAMPLES

* In Gov. George Deukmejian’s second term, Hill discovered a deficit in one of his budgets. Deukmejian’s staff insisted there was no deficit, but Hill was proved right.

* In 1997, Hill issued a welfare reform proposal starkly different from one proposed by Gov. Pete Wilson. Her ideas shaped the plan that was ultimately signed into law.

* In 1999, Hill disagreed with Gov. Gray Davis’ assertion that more state interference with schools is needed to improve student performance. She favors greater local control.

* Also last year, Hill said Davis was wrong to predict that his gambling agreement with California Indian tribes would only slightly increase the number of slot machines in the state. Hill estimates the number will quintuple.