John W. Swain - Budgeting for Public Managers

John W. Swain and B.J. Reed

First published 2010 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge
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Copyright 2010 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Swain, John W., 1948
Budgeting for public managers / by John W. Swain and B.J. Reed
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7656-2524-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. BudgetUnited States. 2. Finance, PublicUnited States. I. Reed, B.J. II. Title.

HJ2051.S93 2010
352.480973dc22

2009023958

ISBN 13: 9780765620507 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 9780765625243 (hbk)

Contents

Books reflect their authors aspirations. We wrote this book with the singular purpose of helping Master of Public Administration (MPA) students understand public budgeting from a management perspective. Other texts in the field emphasize and focus on budget policies, federal budgeting, politics, reforms, policy elites, and other concerns where public managers participation is peripheral. We believe that MPA students are best served by being presented with materials that relate to their current or future positions as public managers and to matters that do or will concern them. Our specific goals include the following:

placing public budgeting into the larger context of public organizations;

explaining historical developments in public budgeting, including reform efforts;

presenting the revenue side of public budgets;

describing the many possible aspects of annual budget processes;

discussing how budgetary politics relates to public managers;

detailing various ways of organizing and processing budget information;

offering insight into the use of analysis in public budgeting;

making public budgeting operating techniques intelligible; and

illuminating economic insights into public budgeting.

We also aspire to cover all forms of public organizations, including federal, state, and local governments and nonprofit organizations; to write as clearly, concisely, and accessibly as possible; and to be topically comprehensive and practically oriented. We believe that our readers can better understand course materials that acknowledge the existence and relevance of all kinds of governments or nonprofit organizations. We believe that clear, concise, and accessible writing, although difficult and time-consuming, increases comprehension and facilitates using class time for discussing material instead of deciphering a textbook. We believe that public budgeting weaves so many different concerns into one process that students are poorly served when a public budgeting text is not topically comprehensive. Finally, we believe that MPA students as actual or potential public managers are interested in practice and that a public budgeting text oriented toward practice will serve them well. We certainly hope you find that our aspirations have been met.

We would like to thank especially those who helped in the preparation of this text. We thank Melanie Kiper at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; Sheryl Gallaher, Phyllis Anderson, and Cindy Matthias at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois; and Kathy Swain for their assistance. We thank the anonymous reviewers who gave their time to review the book proposal and parts of the manuscript. Finally, we thank our spouses, Kathy Swain and Chris Reed, for putting up with us while we worked on this text.

1
Introduction

This book differs from most other public budgeting texts by not focusing primarily on budgetary politics, budgeting reform, or federal budgeting. It focuses on how public budgeting relates to what public managers do. Here, a public manager is a person who exercises discretion in supervising the work of a public organization. By contrast, an executive is an elected or appointed official who engages in policy-making, as do board members and legislators. Managers at the upper levels of public organizations, often referred to as administrators, supervise other managers and interact more with policy-makers.

Public budgeting means the acquisition and use of resources by public organizations. Acquisition of resources means finding and obtaining useful things, mostly money. For the most part, public organizations in the United States find resources in the private sector; they obtain these resources as taxes, fees, or gifts. Use of resources refers to how resources are spent to achieve public purposes. Resources can be spent on contracts to provide services, to provide direct funding to individuals and organizations, or to purchase input factors, such as labor, capital improvements, supplies, and equipment. the use of resources also refers to the purposes, ends, and functions of public organizations, such as education, public health, criminal justice, art appreciation, and safe travel. public organizations pursue myriad purposes, ends, and functions that define their meaning. For example, the Scleroderma Foundation concerns itself with research, education, and support related to a chronic connective tissue disease.

Public managers acquire access to resources so that they can spend them by gaining policy-makers approval of budget proposals. Policy-makers determine generally how resources are used by what they formally approve and by their informal guidance, and managers specifically determine how resources are used by their decisions responding to particular situations.

Acquired resources are called revenues, and resources being used are called expenditures. Generally, public organizations deal with revenues and expenditures separately, which contrasts with how they are handled in the private sector.