Oregon, we have a 10-year budget vision

It's hard enough planning for the next two years, but 10 years out? Yet that's what Gov. John Kitzhaber said we needed to do to get state leaders thinking both short- and long-term.

The 2013-15 budget proposal he released earlier this year was the first to rely on a 10-year budget plan drawn up by his advisers. No longer will lawmakers focus solely on the task of balancing the revenue and expenditures of an agency over a two-year period. The idea is to get legislators thinking of the broader picture and goals.

What does that mean? Let's take education.

The amorphous overall goal is to make sure "every Oregonian has the knowledge, skills and credentials to succeed in life."The methods to meet that goal are to make college more affordable, beef up work skills training, and so on. And we'll know when we've met the overall goal when all third graders are reading at grade level and 40 percent of students are acquiring bachelor's degrees. There are 15 agencies affected by this particular goal.  

From this, experts ferret out real dollar amounts for state programs.Other areas besides education are jobs and innovation, healthy people, healthy environment and, finally, safety.  

We asked George Naughton, Oregon' chief financial officer, whether we have a 10-year budget. He said no. There's no way lawmakers can cement a budget beyond the current two-year period, but they can be guided by a 10-year budgeting plan.

It's unclear whether this method of budgeting will live beyond the Kitzhaber administration, but we give this a Promise Kept.