"We’re doing just fine,” was the pronouncement by Gov. Dave Freudenthal in a recent interview on Wyoming Public Television, concerning our revenue picture entering the 2008 legislative budget session.

   It’s not the picture awash in surplus revenue we’ve had the previous three budget sessions. But everyone agrees there is money to cover the “standard” budgets of state agencies – which have just about doubled since 2000 -- and half a billion dollars more for cities, towns, counties and highways.

   Anyone who starts complaining is urged to think back 20 years. The Legislature was still catching its breath from an energy boom that brought in revenue almost faster than auditors could count it. Then, seemingly overnight, the market for uranium disappeared, and the price of oil dropped from $30 a barrel to $15 and then less. The Legislature ran through a $1 billion “rainy day account” and scrounged money from travel accounts to balance the budget. Imagine an appropriations committee’s response to agency budget requests: a shrug and pockets turned inside out.

   “The panic was palpable,” former Associated Press newsman Jim Angell recalls of the 1986 budget session. Lest any legislator forget the Wyoming budgetary implications of oil prices, the price per barrel was posted daily in the legislative chambers. 

   “They had to make cuts,” he said of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee members. That was the year the Legislature eliminated baseball at the University of Wyoming, to the horror of alumni. “It was not a money maker,” said Angell, who is now executive director for the Wyoming Press Association. 

   Talk about building a dome over War Memorial Stadium at UW ended abruptly in 1986. Everyone talked about economic development and diversity. 

   Budget sessions, in times flush or lean, bring out the best and worst in a process that relies on politics and personality, compromise and concessions. Budget sessions amplify or exacerbate conflicts between a governor and Legislature, between House and Senate or between strong lawmakers. 

   Gov. Ed Herschler, a Democrat, won most confrontations, perhaps owing something to the Democrats’ having one-third of the legislative seats. 

   Tom Kinnison, a legislator 1978-2002 (with a break 1986-88), characterized the task of producing a balanced budget in the years of privation “absolutely horrible.” Kinnison, who now directs a foundation in Sheridan, was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the years when that privation started to ease in the early 1990s. He summed up the process: “You do a lot of research and soul searching and hope it comes out for the best.”

   Well, for the most part. 

   One year, the Legislature balanced the budget by cutting all state agencies by 1 percent. That fouled up federal-state matching funds programs, so Gov. Mike Sullivan repaired the system by shifting around money through his “flex” authority. 

   Everyone agrees budget-writing is easier when you know exactly what the revenue will be for the coming two years and when there’s no excess. It’s harder to deny a request and save the money, when everyone is looking at a $1 billion surplus. “I don’t think I could serve on the Appropriations Committee now, with all that money,” observes Rick Tempest of Casper, who was a member and chairman and then House Speaker in the 1990s.

   It was so bad at, he recalls, Rep. Johnny Burton, an educator, stood up and requested a state education budget reduction.

   Lawmakers scraped to save a few dollars here and there. 

   The process is fascinating and recommended viewing for any student of government and politics. It starts with a governor’s recommendation. The Joint Appropriations Committee scrutinizes the governor’s numbers, listens to agency requests and when writes its own budget – which the other 78 legislators then try to enhance with their own suggestions. Money is added. Money is deleted. Policy and law are written in footnotes. The House and Senate then face off with their own versions in a conference committee, which is the committee meeting to watch as delegates from the House and Senate defend their chambers’ versions but know they all have to be reasonable and responsible. 

   Kinnison had a reputation of being a consummate negotiator, winning inordinate concessions for the Senate in conference committee. But Tempest, his counterpart in the House, said they worked well together to make hard but fair decisions. 

   Phil Nicholas of Laramie, current Senate Appropriations chairman, compares his role to that of attorney (which he is). He diligently represents the Joint Appropriations Committee and then the Senate, with information and explanation. He is not the emotional sort.

   On occasion, a conference committee devolves into a “showdown,” one side waiting for the other to blink on one point of contention, as time for the session expires. But that is rare, thankfully.

   I doubt people are nostalgic for the lean days of the late 1980s. Legislatures were able to balance those budgets in some part because they were putting off projects that the state is funding with our big energy-driven surpluses -- deferred school finance, infrastructure maintenance and construction. 

   But some one aspect of the 1980s wasn’t so bad. 

   Technology has made legislative support work (processing bills and amendments) very efficient. In the 80s, the Legislature and reporters and lobbyists and everyone else spent blocks of time toward the end of sessions waiting for “the paperwork to catch up.” In that pressurized atmosphere, with nerves frayed from intense work and politicking, the periodic idleness was occasion for budget foes to share a song or non-legislative conversation. State Treasurer Stan Smith on his violin were a favorite entertainment. We watched cloggers and sang “Cool Water,” as the LSO labored on the floor below.

   Yes, sometimes the socializing took on a party atmosphere, and decorum suffered. But those breaks lightened things up. Now, the Legislature and its staff are highly efficient. They grind relentlessly toward adjournment without break, and the mood seems less congenial. 

   I wonder if something isn’t lost in all that efficiency.