Suchergebnisse

The evolution of U.S. public budgeting has been described by Schick (1966) as a progression from a control orientation to a management and then a planning orientation. Lee (1992) has tracked the evolution of central budgeting staff largely from a group of accountants to a more varied set of backgrounds, dominated by public administration and general liberal arts educations. As Poland decentralizes fiscal and administrative responsibilities and powers to gminas (local self‐governments), the gmina councils are beginning to view the budget as more than a financial accounting tool proscribed and prescribed by the central government. They are beginning to see the potential for using the budget as a policy and management tool. The evolutionary transformation of budgeting, which took fifty years in the United States, may take only five years in Poland. The evidence for this metamorphosis is based on interviews with several gmina city budgeters, with special attention devoted to the city of Lublin.

A recent national study has found that states may be spending $20 billion on information resources management (IRM) in FY1989. The significant findings of the study regarding financial management are highlighted to show the dimensions of the IRM expenditures in the states. The second part of the paper examines how well the states' accounting systems are able to provide data on IRM expenditures for budgetary decisions. The article expands upon an important issue raised in the study's findings: the need for better integration of accounting and budgeting systems to improve management of information resources. An Information Object Classification Scheme, first suggested by the Commission on Federal Paperwork, is proposed as an important step in helping states improve their information resources management.

AbstractResearch about citizen participation in public budgeting is inconclusive regarding whether citizens actually influence budgetary priorities. In Kenya, emerging citizens' participation models spawned by a constitutional mandate are excellent laboratories for evaluating the impact of citizens on county planning and budgeting decisions. Focus groups of citizens who have participated in planning and budgeting sessions in four Kenyan counties revealed their experiences, their perceived impact in public participation, and suggestions about how their county's participation could be improved. Analysis indicates counties vary in their performance and commitment to an engaged budgeting model whereby participating citizens are able to influence county priorities in the capital budget. Findings support the necessity of participatory transparency for citizens' influence; repeating participants in county budget forums are learning technical and legal aspects of county budgeting, and are beginning to influence the engaged budgeting processes. We argue that participatory transparency is a necessary condition for citizens to be able to affect priorities.

This study investigates the degree to which municipalities engaged in public management networks use their budget documents to report their contributions, whether the network provides the member municipalities with performance data, and how budgetary decisions regarding the network are made within the member organizations and the network administrative organization itself. An analysis of network and member budget documents and a survey of network members shed light on the complex accountability issues and the role of budget documents and the budgeting process to support and enhance democratic accountability in a network context—which contribute to building collaborative governance regime theory.

This analysis explores the options for a theoretical model to guide regional collaboration by local governments that is both politically feasible and consistent with core public administration values. The analysis first examines the research on the adoption, implementation and performance of political consolidation. We then examine the theory and research that underlie functional consolidation and assess both types in lieu of the values of public administration. We find that local government managers and elected officials need a theoretical model for regional collaboration that addresses a key obstacle to service consolidation among local governments: the perceived loss of political power and control associated with consolidation efforts. We suggest multilevel governance theory and the concept of shared sovereignty offer an approach to regional problems with an eye to the political as well as administrative issues, and with instruments that promote core public administration values. The concept of shared sovereignty that underpins the regional collaboration of the countries in Europe has both descriptive and predictive theoretical potential as a multilevel governance theory. The EU functions from a web of interlaced, interdependent agreements to share sovereignty in ways that manage political issues, economic factors, and administrative values, and in a fashion aligned with core PA values in the US.