PAD 101 Assignment #9 PDF

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1 Running Head: PUBLIC BUDGETING

Public Budgeting

2 PUBLIC BUDGETING The public and federal budget processes are very important to the foundation of an organization. There are different types of budgets that are utilized to organize an agency/organization and each has a different structure and purpose. Theories formulated by multiple political scientists and scholars have contributed to the development of budgeting and policies. The ten main steps of the budget process consist of budget preparation, governor’s recommendation, appropriations bills, appropriations subcommittees, full appropriations committee action, House of Senate floor, sent to other chamber, House and Senate vote on conference report, conference report adopted, budget bill enrolled, then ratified, and sent to Governor to create a law. The two major types of public budgets are operating budgets and capital budgets (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 397). Operating budgets are short term, usually year-to-year that involve the allocation of resources for programs and agencies. Capital budgets are long term that involve financing and investing in bridges, parks and ways to improve daily living (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 399). A line-item budget involves simplicity by listing exactly where public money will be spent and also helps to keep spending under control (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 403). Performance budgeting involves examining how well a department is performing in order to calculate how much money should be spent on that department. It requires information about departments and their performance levels (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 404). Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) consists of departments examining their own funding each year and allows individuals to prioritize and set certain goals for that department (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 405). Planning Program Budgeting Systems (PPBS) is another type of budget which based on the rational decision-making rule and consists of costs and benefits.

3 PUBLIC BUDGETING Alternative programs are also analyzed before making decisions (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 407). Budgets are also divided among two branches: executive budgets and legislative budgets. Executive budgets are prepared by executives within a government’s department and they create budgets after hearing opinions or requests from numerous agencies and departments. Legislative budgets require opinions of various individuals because they are prepared by certain representatives who make decisions (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 399). There are also different theories behind the budgeting process. Political scientist, V. O. Key analyzed how policy makers distributed scarce resources among various agencies and departments and stated that the allocation of these resources is a crucial aspect of budgeting (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 416). Aaron Wildavsky, a scholar, was interested in incrementalism which is a rational decision-making process involving prior decisions which are prioritize in order to create bigger change in the future. Changes occur in small increments rather than huge steps taken by the organization (Holzer & Schwester, 2016, p. 418). It is evident that the public budget process is very complex and involves multiple steps and individuals to create a budget and allocate resources to certain departments and agencies. With different budgeting processes, individuals are able to organize policies and budgets and determine which department will benefit most from resources. Theories of budgeting shape the budgeting process and enable policy and budget makers to make rational decisions for an organization or agency.

4 PUBLIC BUDGETING References Holzer, M., & Schwester, R.W. (2016). Public administration: An introduction (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge....