No matter what happens in the special election May 19, California's government finances will remain a mess. It took years of mismanagement and economic misfortune for the state to dig itself into this hole, and it is going to take many years to climb out of it.

As the climbing begins, the state needs to make fundamental changes in the way it collects and spends the taxpayers' money. Otherwise, the next generation of lawmakers will repeat the same old mistakes as their predecessors.

Proposition 1A, with its rainy-day fund, would be one improvement, requiring lawmakers to set money aside in good times to cushion the blow of the next downturn. A bipartisan commission that has been studying the tax system will soon release its recommendations on how to make California's revenue collections fairer and more stable. That could also improve things.

Another idea that deserves serious consideration is performance-based budgeting, which would introduce a new mindset into the way state officials think about their jobs and lawmakers consider how much to spend on each program. It would also give the public a much clearer sense of where their money is going and what they are getting in return.

Incredible as it may seem, most government programs don't have clear and measurable goals and objectives against which the taxpayers and state legislators can hold managers accountable. And when legislators decide how much to spend on each of these programs, they usually don't have any way to judge whether the money they are spending is having the result they desire. Performance-based budgeting would change that.

In a nutshell, the concept is this: Require every state program to develop a list of desired outcomes. What, exactly, are they trying to achieve, and how are they going about it? From this comes their budget: how much money the Legislature thinks it will take to achieve those outcomes. The next year, lawmakers can look at the goals the managers were trying to reach and see which programs are succeeding and which are falling short, then begin asking why.

Are the lines too long at the Department of Motor Vehicles? Set a goal and commit to reducing them. Are too many parolees committing new crimes after they are released from prison? The Corrections Department should set a goal for getting that number down. How long does it take to build a mile of freeway? The Department of Transportation should know the answer and be held to a reasonable standard.

To be sure, some of this happens now in the budget process. But it is haphazard and inconsistent. It's not an accepted part of every program's mission or every budget hearing's agenda.

State Sen. Lois Wolk, a Democrat, is working with Republican lawmakers on bipartisan legislation to require every state program to use performance-based budgeting.

"We need to change the culture," Wolk told me this week. "That's what this is about." Not surprisingly, some in the bureaucracy are resisting. The Department of Finance said it would cost millions of dollars to train managers to write their budgets using the new system. Others say the idea sounds good but will never work because it is too difficult to measure the performance of a government program.

"There's a tremendous amount of cynicism," Wolk said.

But other states have tried this approach and are making it work. Washington and Florida are two models California could follow, according to an analysis by California Forward, a bipartisan reform group that is pushing the idea.

Florida's Health Department, for example, lists more than two dozen specific goals and objectives on its Web site, from reducing the infection rates for AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis to reducing obesity and cutting the rate of food-borne illness and infant deaths. And these are not just general goals. The precise numerical benchmarks are stated for each of the next five years. The same process and the same level of detail are part of every department's regular business.

Wolk's bill, SB 777, and AB 1382 by Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello have wide support outside the Capitol. The California Association of Nonprofits, the California Taxpayers Association, Children Now, the Northbay Leadership Council, the Fresno Unified School District, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the Orange County Business Council are among the backers.

Some of these groups think that a better focus on results will lead to pressure to spend more money on the programs they value. Others think improved accountability will produce savings. But all are united in their belief that California cannot simply continue to stumble blindly from one budget year to the next, adding a little to each program's bottom line without stopping to ask about the point of it all, and to measure what results from all that spending.

It's difficult, at a time of crisis like this, to think about the long term. But now is the time to begin forging the kind of comprehensive change that is long overdue. California's residents and businesses are having to adapt to live, work and prosper in the 21st century. Isn't it time the government did the same?