Exploring the Budgetary Base in Georgia

This article is an exploratory study of the budgetary base in Georgia. Using agency, gubernatorial, and legislative estimates for all state agencies during the fiscal years 1980 to 1987, it examines the place of budgetary base decisions in the politics of state budgeting, and seeks to improve the theoretical understanding of that concept.     

Participation in the Budgetary Process in Local Government

Direct democracy is seen as a means of reengaging citizens in the political process. However, it is a contested concept that requires further development by being grounded in a specific context. This article reports on research undertaken in Victorian local government where the New Public Management (NPM) has been in evidence for a number of decades which according to the literature has impacted on accountability to the broader community. The possibility of consultation and citizen participation in the local government budgetary process was examined. The results reported suggest that participation in the budgetary decisions in local government is possible.     

Evaluating the Evaluation Strategy as an Instrument for Budgetary Control

This article reports recent research undertaken on the contribution of program evaluation to that part of the budget process for which the Australian public service has carriage. It examines the degree of success which the Labor government's evaluation strategy attained in serving budget agency information purposes. The research is not conclusive, only indicative. Based on two sets of evidence — interviews with officers in the Department of Finance¹ and an analysis of survey results on the use of evaluation in the budget — it contends the evaluation strategy has had only a marginal impact on central budgetary processes. By documenting changes in the approaches of budget officials the article reports the impact of program evaluation on the core function of Finance — the provision of policy advice relating to the expenditure priorities of government.     

Budgetary Cutback and Transit System Performance: The Case of MARTA

In the context of diminishing availability of transit revenue, an important question for transit managers is what kind of information system or format should be used to signal costs and benefits of each required cut in the budget? Should the present MARTA process of negotiated across-the-board cuts in line item accounts be replaced by a formal results-oriented system that could tie marginal cutback decisions to changes in operating and maintenance performance? In order to develop a preliminary answer, this article attempts first to measure managerial and service performance of line-item cut;. Then, based on the FY 84-87 MARTA experience, it argues that transit systems, should avoid the considerable costs of developing a comprehensive results-oriented alternative to the line-item method by using operations and management experience to trace only selected performance-resource linkages.     

Coping with Poverty: The Impact of Fiscal Austerity on the Local Budgetary Process in Norway

This article examines the impact of public sector austerity on the budgetary process in local government. We initially propose that resource squeeze influences the criteria of resource allocation. More specifically, we suggest that austerity tends to generate a greater emphasis on performance-based criteria such as cost-benefit assessments, while arguments relating to production costs, previous commitments and relative standards of service supply tend to carry less weight. A regression model is developed to test these hypotheses. Response variables, drawn from a survey conducted among Norwegian local government officials, measure the success of a menu of arguments which justify increased appropriations, and we examine whether austerity affects the perceived success of these arguments. Consistent with previous studies, we find no impact of stress on decision-making behavior in local government. We do not believe that this result can be dismissed as merely a by-product of our research design. This conclusion leaves us with at least two possible interpretations. One suggests that austerity affects the criteria of resource allocation if, and only if, decision-makers perceive the squeeze to exert a persistent and inescapable pressure which requires a fundamental redefinition of managerial style. This has hardly been the case in Norwegian local government. The other interpretation suggests that the criteria for resource allocation in fact remain unchanged, even in situations when austerity is believed to be persistent. Inertia can be caused by (a) the disproportional disutility attributed to budgetary cut-backs compared to the benefits of appropriation increases, (b) the propensity to attribute austerity to "external" rather than "internal" causes, and (c), problems related to aggregating individual preferences and criteria into a coherent organizational policy of resource allocation.     

The Politics of Court Budgeting in the States: Is Judicial Independence Threatened by the Budgetary Process?

Judicial independence in American politics has been hailed as a means of preserving individual liberty and minority rights against the actions of the majoritarian branches of government. Recently, however, legal professionals and scholars of the courts have begun to question the magnitude of judicial independence, suggesting that budgeting and finance issues pose a threat to judicial independence. This article explores whether state judiciaries are being threatened on this front by soliciting the perceptions of key state officials. Using surveys of court administrators, executive budget officers, and legislative budget officers in the states, we examine three aspects of the politics of judicial budgeting: competing for scarce resources, interbranch competition, and pressure to raise revenues. The survey responses suggest that, in a substantial number of states, judicial independence has, at times, been threatened by interbranch competition and pressures to raise revenues.     

Budgetary politics in the federal republic of Germany

The purpose of this article is to advocate a more careful approach towards the analysis of the factors that are decisive for the comparative evaluation of system performance and the reasons given for output variations. Using budgetary politics in the Federal Republic of Germany as an example, it is argued that the majority of the ‘Does politics matter?’ literature is oversimplifying reality by overlooking the institutional variable.     

The Evaluation of Performance in the Mexican Federal Government: A Study of the Monitoring Agencies' Modernization Process

An initial assessment of the Mexican government’s implementation of the Model for the Performance Evaluation of Internal Control Organizations (MIDO) can reveal its actual influence on the organizational culture of those agencies. MIDO began in 2003 as an instrument to transform all federal monitoring agencies into effective, performance‐driven organizations. It seeks to modify the behavior of internal control organizations in order to shift their rigid focus on control to a more flexible perspective. The idea is to allow them to take co‐responsibility for the performance of the agencies they supervise. The author exposes a contradictory and paradoxical result of the program’s implementation: the “net organizational effect” is different from MIDO’s stated objective. The internal control organizations are not only adopting the discourse of performance, but also they are adapting it to fit their own purposes while keeping their traditional function of supervision intact. They have not internalized the co‐responsibility culture, as MIDO proposes, despite accepting the discourse of performance evaluation.     

Budgetary Practices in Smaller Units of Government

Budgetary practice in smaller units of local government has not been the subject of systematic examination. A survey of 122 towns, villages, and cities less than 25,000 population in upstate New York was conducted in spring 1987. This survey indicates that most key policymakers are satisfied with current practices and have been involved with budgeting for more than three years. Budgetary innovation has affected smaller governmental units, and the actual application is related to the educational levels of the official charged with budget preparation.     

Do Legislatures Matter in Budgetary Reform?

A recurring problem in the implementation of budgetary reforms at the state level is whether and how to engage legislatures in the effort. This paper posits that legislatures are critical for effective implementation and that different legislative institutional arrangements may have differential effects on both legislative and agency implementation. Drawing on a multistate survey, the analysis shows that higher levels of legislative responsibility for budgeting as well as legislative engagement in oversight of performance information are significantly associated with increased use of performance measures in making budgetary decisions both at the legislative and agency levels.     

省会城市预算过程中党政首长的作用与影响——基于三个省会城市的研究

以我国三个省会城市为例来试图回答这样一个问题:在省会城市预算过程中,党政首长究竟发挥着怎样的作用,他们是如何影响着预算过程和预算改革的?研究发现,这三个省会城市预算改革后,预算权力结构并未从根本上改变.其核心仍然是市委书记和市长,他们仍然是地方预算过程中实际的财政资源申请的审批者或最终资源配置者.这主要体现在,预算改革后,市委领导下的"行政预算"体制的继续,市政府领导高层预算分配权力的相对集中,和市长对部门关系以及部门利益的决定性影响.研究还指出,要准确地表达地方党政首长在预算过程中的权力,需要将其放在一种"关系"的维度来具体化.此外,对预算环境的讨论也是必要的,尤其是政治环境,对于党政首长而言,预算过程中的不确定性通常都是和政治环境相联系的.     

Performance Standards and Evaluation

The benefits of performance monitoring for public services are identified as greater transparency of objectives and accountability for results. This article considers recent experience in developing standards to evaluate efficiency and effectiveness of public services. In broad terms this is being done through performance information which is a much more encompassing concept than standards or indicators. Such information is an element of an accountability framework that provides greater management autonomy and flexibility and extends to the private sector which is increasingly providing, or involved with the provision of, public services.     

Eliciting the Public's Budgetary Preferences: Insights from Contingent Valuation

Contingent valuation studies can provide useful insights for designers and users of surveys eliciting the public's comprehensive budgetary preferences. Such studies attempt to elicit the public's monetary valuations of specific nontraded goods to support decisions of managers in the public sector. Although controversial, these surveys provide much useful methodological analysis and evidence relevant to avoiding bias and unreliability of surveys intended to elicit more general budgetary preferences. Significantly refined over the past several decades, the underlying methodology shows substantial promise for further development. Collaboration of specialists knowledgeable about public budgeting and finance with specialists in economics, survey methods, and market research could contribute greatly to designing, implementing, and evaluating surveys of the citizenry's public budgetary preferences.