Interviews with state legislators from Wisconsin (D. Bezruki), Massachusetts (T. P. Kennedy), and Virginia (P. Leone) illustrate the roles that evaluation is playing in the current state budget crisis. The influence of evaluation data appears largely specific to individual programs rather than systematically applied to the budgeting process. (SLD)

California state officials vary in their perceptions of the functions and uses of state Department of Education evaluations, according to state legislators, legislative staff members, department administrators, and outside evaluators whose opinions were gathered through interviews and at a 1981 symposium. Highlighted here are the legislators'…

Trends in state budgeting agencies' staffs, roles, functions and relative power, interagency relationships and relative power, and the effects of professional staffing on budget policy and on democratic practice and decision-making are considered. The following three types of legislative staffs that impinge directly on budget decisions are…