The hostile meeting with the 2nd best witness

The prosecutor has now called their second-best witness to the stand: James White. White works for the Fiscal Review Committee. So far the questions have focused on what fiscal impact a bill will have and what considerations are taken into consideration.

"We have seven fiscal analysts that work on these bills," says White. "We list the assumptions of the fiscal impact...If there is a cost to the state government, we will list the amount of that cost to implement the bill."

White says Fiscal Notes are available to the public. He admits his group has nothing to do with whether or not the bill will be passed, but does say the amount the bill will cost does play a role in the committee's vote.

Now we get to the good stuff and learn why DiScenza mentioned that White is his second-best witness...

According to White, Ford wanted to meet with him to discuss the fiscal note attached to Bill 94 -- and you know that can't be good.

White says he usually attends the meeting along with one analyst.

"It was scheduled immediately after a Senator Legislature meeting," says White. "Senator Ford invited us back to his personal office."

Ford get get right to the point. He begins the meeting by stating he thought the fiscal note was incorrect and suggests that they change the note.

"We listened to his concerns. We explained to Senator Ford the reasons we had issued the note," says White. "He insisted we were wrong."

White says Ford wanted them to revise the note.

"Senator was very aggressive in articulating his views," says White. "I wouldn't use the word hostile, but he was aggressive."

Ford wanted to have the issue resolved in this office without having the matter discussed publicly. He didn't want the 'errors' they had made to hit the public as that wouldn't look good for White's department. But that's not all. He suggested that he fire the analyst who worked on the document - the same analyst that was sitting in the chair beside White at this meeting.

After the meeting, White did take another look at note --just in case Ford happened to be right. But that wasn't the case...

"We were satisfied with the original fiscal note. It was correct," says White.

So White did not change the note. Instead Ford amended the bill. The amendment basically said they didn't have to use the recycling company if they didn't want to -giving people the option to recyle. This reduced the cost to the state and removed the fiscal note.