2010 - Sites at Lafayette - Lafayette College

KeepingCaliforniaRunningCrystal Taylor ’03 plays a keyrole in determining the country’slargest state budgetThough she’s never playedan action hero in films—unlike thegovernor she answers to— Crystal Taylor’03 faces her own heroic task: finding thenearly $120 billion needed to keep thestate of California running.“It’s a lot of pressure,” she says with achuckle, “but I thrive under pressure.”As budget officer in the executivebranch of the state’s Franchise TaxBoard, Taylor leads a team of 13 as theycoordinate the budget for the departmentthat oversees millions of taxforms and monies that pourin from individuals and businesses.Sifting through thismountain of information tomake the fiscal recommendationsto the legislature behindthe country’s largest statebudget dominates Taylor’s dayfrom the moment she wakes.“I’m checking email on myBlackberry while I’m brushingmy teeth,” she says.Taylor’s never been one toflinch when confronted witha challenge. She majored inmathematics at Lafayette, adiscipline largely devoid ofAfrican American women. Afterhearing a speaker joke aboutthe arduous graduate econom​ics track at Princeton University,Taylor took that challenge toanother level by earning simultaneous master’s degrees(economics & public policy and urban & regional planning,both in 2006).“I want to be that person everyone teases because I’mdoing the hardest work,” she says. That drive landed herin California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office as a fiscal policyanalyst. “I asked the question, Where’s the hardest place where Ican make a difference? I’m going there.”Only two months into that job, Taylor testified beforethe state legislature in a televised hearing, discussingher department’s program ideas, including how to keeptensions low among callers to the state’s tax call center.When an assemblyman challenged her findings, Taylorbacked her testimony with her call-monitoring fieldwork.“I asked thequestion, Where’sthe hardest placewhere I can makea difference? I’m{going there.”“Speaking truth to power” in thathearing changed Taylor: “I had to findconviction for every word I said.”Today, Taylor’s role makes a differencenot only to the state’s operation, but alsoto the lives of its employees. Confrontedwith a mandate to lay off state workers,Taylor and her group negotiated adeal with the governor’s fiscal officersthat sub stituted budget allocations forunfilled positions with those of workersfacing layoffs, saving 300 jobs.“Even if they don’t know me,” shesays, “I know the decisions I make impactpeople.”Taylor cites more than 20 professorsat Lafayette who altered the course of herown life and gave her the tools to meetCalifornia’s fiscal challenges. Discussingeconomics over dinner at the home ofprofessors Gladstone Hutchinson andUte Schumacher built a foundation forTaylor to ask the kind of probing questionsher job demands.“That someone is willing to takethe time to get to know you and theirbelief that you are special and havepromise, that was inspiring to me, evenwhen I wasn’t so sure that I did,” shesays. “To have someone say ‘you can doit, I believe in you, and here are two orthree steps you can take, a book youcan read to explain the process,’ or evenrecommending a professor to chat withabout your ideas—that was so commonat Lafayette that I can’t imagine being who I am todaywithout it.”That support helped Taylor as she undertook a seniorthesis proposing a mathematical model to describe the economicrelationship between Lafayette and the City of Eastonand outlining recommendations on how these influencescould be more equitable.Helping to manage the behemoth that is California’s taxsystem and her department’s $600 million budget at a timeof uncertainty calls on all of Taylor’s multiple skills. Yet oneunexplored skill excites her most of all. This April will bringmore than just a deluge of tax forms to Taylor’s Sacramentooffice—she and husband Edward Torres are expecting theirown little pink-bowed tax deduction. nBy Dan Edelenwww.lafayette.edu/mcdonoghreport Winter 2010 | theMcDonoghreport | 5