More "New Math" From the MT Executive Branch

In this article detailing the governor's hesitancy towards increases in university funding, I noticed another example of the administration's fudging of numbers. The executive branch already used bunk accounting methods to approve well deserved tax relief for Montanans, but now the administration is inconsistent in its take on university funding over the past decade:

"Schweitzer gave the University System officials some handouts that showed how funding for the state colleges and universities had increased significantly since he took office in 2005.

"This is what might be considered the dark ages of higher education," Schweitzer said, pointing to the lower funding levels under former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot, governor from 1993 to 2001, and, to a lesser extent, former Republican Gov. Judy Martz, governor from 2001-2005. In those years, he said, tuition had to be raised because state support wasn't adequate.

Dennison said he's well aware of the numbers cited by Schweitzer and was appreciative of the governor's support.

However, Dennison pointed out that the $8,500 per resident student support for 2009 cited by Schweitzer included money for buildings, while earlier fees on the graph did not."

Two observations here: (1) it appears the administration is inflating numbers to make their increases look larger than in prior administrations; (2) the administration likes to use larger numbers when they want to tout their work on increasing spending in areas like education, but they like to downplay the increases in state government when they are being criticized for spending too much:

"[Roy] Brown immediately went after Schweitzer, saying the governor "masterminded the largest spending increase in the history of Montana" by boosting spending by more than 40 percent in 35 months in office.

...

In response, Schweitzer disputed Brown's numbers and provided charts showing that his spending hikes were about in the midlevel range of recent Montana governors if spending one-time money and bond issues are excluded."

Graphs appear to be a popular way to convey a message, but they also appear to be inconsistent depending on the audience. School building money is included to inflate spending number on education, but one-time money is excluded in order to downplay overall state spending increases. Anyone else think this is fishy?