Curriculum Reform in Budgeting and Financial Management: Preliminary Thoughts on the Dimension of the Field

Editors' note: In January 1984, Dick Hickman, chairperson-elect of the Section on Budgeting and Financial Management, American Society for Public Administration, appointed a task force of about 30 ASPA members on Budgeting and Financial Management Curriculum Reform. The task force is charged to report at the Indianapolis meeting of ASPA in 1985. Professor James R. Alexander was appointed chairman of the task force, and in this capacity convened a double-session roundtable on curriculum reform at the Denver meeting of ASPA in April. This article is Professor Alexander's presentation at that session. The task force welcomes any comments, suggestions, or critiques on this important subject. Such communications may be addressed to Professor James R. Alexander, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904.     

Book Notes

Why People Don't Trust Government J.S. Nye, P.D. Zelikow and D.C. King.
Canberra 1912: Plans and Planners of the Australian Capital Competition J.W. Reps.
Issues in Accrual Output Budgeting Financial Reform Division, WA Treasury.
Unlocking the Infrastructure: The Reform of Public Utilities in Australia Stephen King and Rodney Maddock.
The Spirit of Reform: Managing the New Zealand State Sector in a Time of Change Allen Schick (Report prepared for the State Services Commission and the Treasury.     

PUBLIC BUDGETING: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS

Robert W. Burchell, James H. Carr, Richard L. Florida and Jarnes Nemeth. The New Reality of Municipal Finance: The Rise and Fall of the Intergovernmental City .
Government Finance Officers Association. Capital Budgeting: Blueprints for Change .
Edward A. Lehan. Budgetmaking: A Workbook of Public Budgeting Theory and Practice .
Thomas D. Lynch. Public Budgeting in America , 2nd Edition.
John L. Mikesell. Fiscal Administration: Analysis and Applications for the Public Sector , 2nd Edition.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Steven D. Gold, (ed.) The Unfinished Agenda for State Tax Reform Andrew Dunsire and Christopher Hood, Cutback Management in Public Bureaucracies: Popular Theories and Observed Out-comes in Whitehall The Auditor General's Report to the Legislative Assembly, Province of British Columbia, Canada, April 10, 1989 Charles K. Coe, (ed.) Public Financial Management for Public Budgeting & Finance     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Politics of Public Budgeting. By I.S. RUBIN (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1990, 248pp). Budgeting In the Provinces: Leadership and the Premiers. Edited by A. MASLOVE
Aboriginal Employment Equity by the Year 2000. Edited by J.C. ALTMAN
Making Equity Planning Work. By NORMAN KRUMHOLZ and JOHN FORESTER     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed:
Kenneth D. Sanders Local Government Financial and Budgetary Analysis
Richard J. Stillman II Results-Oriented Budgeting for Local Public Managers in the 1980's
Helen F. Ladd and T. Nicolaus Tideman Tax and Expenditure Limitations
Irwin T. David, C. Eugene Sturgeon and Eula L. Adams How to Evaluate and Improve Internal Controls in Government Units
Harvey E. Brazer and Deborah S. Laren Michigan's Fiscal and Economic Structure     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Irene Rubin, The Politics of Public Budgeting: Getting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing Public Works Today: A Profile of Local Service Organizations and Managers Wayne Vroman, Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund Adequacy in the 1990's Laurence J. Kotlifoff and David A. Wise, The Wage Carrot and the Pension Stick: Retirement Benefits and Labour Force Participation Lawrence J. Haas, Running on Empty: Bush, Congress, and the Politics of a Bankrupt Government Robert Berne and Richard Schramm, The Financial Analysis of Governments     

Mapping a Field's Development: 20 Years of ABFM Conferences

Public budgeting and financial management has grown into a vibrant and productive research field of study with multiple journals and conferences devoted to the topic. One way to map the field's development is to examine the participants and topics covered in its longest-running dedicated gathering of researchers, the 20 annual conferences of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM). This article traces the 20-year history and composition of ABFM in terms of the participants and topics. It documents the evolution of the field and provides clues to the future direction of public budgeting and financial management published research.     

Searching for Efficiency in the Public Sector: Interim Evaluation of Performance Budgeting in New Zealand

In this article I examine the efforts to promote performance measurement in the public sector with particular reference to New Zealand. In section two I examine the State Sector Act of 1988 and the Public Finance Act of 1989, which together brought about changes in the New Zealand public sector. In section three I examine the problems of implementing the reform. In section four I discuss the experience of developing statements of performance measurement required under the Financial Administration Act of 1989 and in section five I develop an alternative scheme on the basis that a uniform approach is less likely to be applicable to a range of public sector agencies. The final section contains a brief conclusion.     

Toward a Better Understanding of Politics: Linking Costs, Cultures, and Institutional Rules to Budgets

Books reviewed:
Aman Khan, Cost and Optimization in Government
Ronald F. King, Budgeting Entitlements: The Politics of Food Stamps
Steven G. Koven, Public Budgeting in the United States: The Cultural and Ideological Setting     

Accrual Budgeting: Accounting Treatment of Key Public Sector Items and Implications for Fiscal Policy

Budgeting in accrual terms is one of the most controversial issues in public sector accounting. In this paper, we analyze the accounting treatment of problematic elements of the financial statements when introducing accrual budgeting, and discuss the effects of the analyzed accounting alternatives on fiscal policy. We focus on three pioneer countries in the implementation of accrual budgeting and accounting: the United Kingdom, Sweden, and New Zealand. The accounting standards of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, the European System of Accounts, and the Government Finance Statistics Manual of the International Monetary Fund are taken as benchmarks.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Robert D. Lee. Jr. and Ronald W. Johnson, Public Budgeting Systems
John L. Mikesell, Fiscal Administration: Analysis and Application for the Public Sector
S. Rosen, Public Finance     

BOOK NOTES

Government Service as a Profession, Brisbane, Queensland Regional Group of the Royal Institute of Public Administration, 1978 K. WINDOW, Local Government Reform, Brisbane, Queensland Group of the Royal Institute of Public Administration, 1978 JAMES M. BUCHANAN and RICHARD E. WAGNER, FiscalResponsibility in Constitutional Democracy, Leiden and Boston, Studies in Public Choice, No. I, Martinus Nijhoff, 1978 Y. FORTIN, Le Controle de I'Administration Economique en Grand-Bretagne, Paris, Editions du CNRS, 1978 Ethics in Public Administration: A Bibliography, Canberra, Public Service Board, 1979 R. N. SPANN, Government Administration in Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1979 COLIN PRITCHARD and RICHARD TAYLOR, Social Work: Reform or Revolution? R. T. GOLEMBIEWSKI and M. COHEN, People in Public Service: A Reader in Public Personnel Administration, Illinois, Peacock Publishers Inc., 1976 CLAUDIA D. SCOTT, Local and Regional Government in New Zealand: Function and Finance R. M. BURNS, Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: Canadian and Australian Experiences, Canberra, The Australian National University Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, Research Monograph No. 22 1977 ALBERT BRETON and ANTHONY SCOTT, The Economic Consrirurion of Federal Stares, Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1978 Bureau of Transport Economics, A Discussion Paper of Transport Planning in Sydney to 1975, Canberra, AGPS, 1978 RUSSELL MATHEWS, Australian Federalism 1977, Canberra, The Australian National University Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, 1978 RICHARD L. DAFT and SELWYN W. BECKER, Innovarion in Organizations. Innovation Adoption in School Organizations, New York, Elsevier, 1978 RICHARD LEHNE, The Quest for Justice. The Politics of School Finance Reform, New York, Longmans, 1978 JEAN I. MARTIN, The Migrant Presence. Australian Responses 1947–1977, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, Studies in Society series No. 2, 1978 H. WHITMORE and M. ARONSON, Review of Administrative Action, Sydney, The Law Book Co., 1978 R. A. WILD, Social Strarification in Ausrralia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin Australia Ltd., Studies in Society series No. 3,1978 ADAM GRAYCAR, Social Policy: An Australian Inrroducrion, Melbourne, Macmillan, 1977 DAVID SOLOMON, Inside rhe Australian Parfiamenr, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1978 J. R. HAY, The Development of rhe British Werfare Srare. 1880–1975, London, Edward Arnold, 1978 INA BERTRAND, Film Censorship in Australia, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1978 BRUCE MUIRDEN, When Power Wenr Public: a Study in Expediency: the nationalisation of the Adelaide Electric Supply Co., Bedford Park, APSA, Politics, Flinders University, 1978 ANDREW LEMON (ed.), Archives Conference Proceedings, 1977, Australian Society of Archivists, P.O. Box 83, O'Connor 2601, 1978 H. C. COOMBS, Kulinma: Listening to Aboriginal Australians, Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1979 DIANA CLOSE, LOULA RODOPOULOS, JENNIE M. BRIGGS, and ELISABETH GAWITH, Interviewing Immigrants: Developing Research in the Australian Context, Melbourne, Clearing House on Migration Issues, 1978     

Growing Grassroots Democracy: Dynamic Outcomes in Building New York City’s Participatory Budgeting Program

Within five years of its launch, Participatory Budgeting in New York City (PBNYC) spread from four to thirty-one of New York’s fifty-one council districts, enabling city residents to directly allocate thirty-eight million dollars in public funds. During this period, PBNYC’s neighborhood-level forums remained largely unchanged, but, in order to sustain growth, administrative shifts altered the institution’s basic design. This article examines how and why this transition affected the degree of popular control afforded by PBNYC, specifically within its cross-district Steering Committee. Analysis of original interviews and organizational documents indicates that the transition brought important, if modest, gains but impeded aspects of community empowerment through bureaucratic resistance and imbalanced governmental-civil society roles. Key players responded by reforming PBNYC’s internal governance. This case sheds light on the factors that shape participatory institutions and their impacts, emphasizing the dynamic interactions between actors and the resulting gains and losses that aggregate toward longer term outcomes.     

Book Review

Book reviewed:
Irene S. Rubin, The Politics of Public Budgeting: Getting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing     

Participatory Budgeting and Community-Based Research: Principles,Practices, and Implications for Impact Validity

Research and evaluation is an integral part of the Participatory Budgeting (PB) process. Since PB in New York City (PBNYC) is designed to be a democratic and community-based initiative that is grounded in the values of equity and inclusion, it is important that the research and evaluation methods used to study the process and its participants adhere to the same principles. For the past five years, a team of community-based researchers, academics, and PB participants have designed research questions and instruments, implemented data collection, analyzed and shared data with PB participants and practitioners, and issued reports to the wider public. Like PB, the research design is rooted in the communities where PB is operating. The research is not intended to sit on a shelf but is actively used by participants and practitioners to help reflect on the process, improve deliberation in decision-making, and strengthen the process and outcomes of PB. This article will discuss Participatory Action Research principles used by the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, explore the applicability of these principles to the Participatory Budgeting research context, and explain how these practices have helped to deepen and improve the process and outcomes of PBNYC.     

U.S. Prosecution of State and Local Officials for Political Corruption: Is the Bureaucracy Out of Control in a High-Stakes Operation Involving the Constitutional System?

Perhaps the most serious and disabling federal intrusion ofrecent years into the independent political status of stateand local governments has been actions by the U.S. governmentto prosecute elected state and local officials and their closeassociates for local political corruption. In 1986 U.S. Attorneysin New York, Boston, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, andelsewhere pursued such investigations and prosecutions withunusual vigor. These activities have a recent genesis—since1974—and they are basically unauthorized, in importantrespects out of control, and overall questionable in terms ofthe federal nature of our constitutional system. These findingsare supported by data from the Public Integrity Section of theCriminal Division and the Office for U.S. Attorneys, both inthe Department of Justice, and by opinions of U.S. courts, legislativehistories of bills and statutes, and sources on criminal lawand political corruption.     

The relationship between participation and managerial autonomy in cuba's basic units of cooperative production: Six case studies

We are pleased to present the following reports on library resources written by Jiri Kende, Departmental Representative of the Social Science Division of the Freie Universitat in Berlin, West Germany, and Mr. Edward P. Kasinec, chief librarian of the New York Public Library's Slavonic Division. Similar reports on other special collections in various countries will be published in forthcoming issues. Mr. Kasinec has been commissioned to write a report on Soviet libraries, which we hope will appear in the next issue.     

Book Reviews

The Deficit and the Public Interest: The Search for Responsible Budgeting in the 1980s. By JOSEPH WHITE AND AARON WILDAVSKY.
The Deregulation of the World Financial Markets: Myths, Realities and Impacts. By SARKIS J. KHOURY.
Government by Moonlight: The Hybrid Parts of the State. By PATRICK BIRKIN-SHAW, IAN HARDEN, NORMAN LEWIS.
Strategies for Managing Intergovernmental Policies and Networks. Edited by ROBERT W. GAGE and MYRNA P. MANDELL.
Strategies for Managing Intergovernmental Policies and Networks. Edited by ROBERT W. GAGE and MYRNA P. MANDELL.
The Silence of Constitutions: Gaps, "Abeyances" and Political Temperament in the Maintenance of Government. By MICHAEL FOLEY.
Demographic Change and the American Future. By R. SCOTT FOSLER, WILLIAM ALONSO, JACK A. MEYER, and ROSEMARY KERN.
The State and Policy Outcomes in Latin America. By LAWRENCE S. GRAHAM.     

Assessing faculty research productivity in graduate public policy programs

This study assesses the faculty research productivity of 23 graduate public policy programs, and is based upon data from the Social Sciences Citations Index. The results clearly show that a handful of policy programs have outstanding research records: UC Berkeley, Princeton, Michigan, Chicago, Duke, Carnegie-Mellon, Rand, Syracuse, and, of course, Harvard. Most of the rest also have quite commendable records by this criterion.Inquiries regarding this study should be addressed to Professor Fred Thompson, Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, where Michael Farber is currently a second-year student. Patricia Powers graduated in 1983 and is currently employed by ICF in Washington, D.C.