Suchergebnisse

Understanding just how state leaders respond to fiscal crises and the continuing challenges of adequate funding should provide insight into how successful states are likely to be in creating environments where most citizens can attend and benefit from higher education. This article describes and begins to classify the nature and range of state responses to ongoing fiscal challenges. We focus on state-level leadership and governance, fiscal policies, and accountability mechanisms. We identify five types of responses: cutting costs (emphasizing cost controls and low-cost providers); buying degrees (allocating state funds based on outcomes not inputs); the grand bargain (providing more campus autonomy in exchange for lower funding); hunkering down and waiting (hoping that state appropriations will return to past levels); and falling apart (weak governance mechanisms compounding financial difficulties). The tradeoffs inherent in each approach are discussed.

Consistent choice in an inconsistent world requires processes for both rational calculation & effective control. The budgetary process incorporates both of these functions. However, students of public sector budgeting tend either to ignore budget execution or to view the time expended by budgeteers on the execution of budgets -- as opposed to their construction -- as a gross misallocation of resources, seriously undervaluing the control function & the budgeteer's role in preventing control loss. At the same time, budgeteers frequently misuse the controls at their disposal. In certain cases (ie, where competitive supply of a public service is justified & in effect) expenditure controls are redundant & serve no real purpose. Budget execution is primarily concerned with two kinds of expenditure controls, allotment controls & fund reports, & is supported by position controls. The immediate purpose of these controls is to insure that purchases are limited to the amounts & purposes specified in the budget act. However, given the typical relationship between the budget agency & the operating bureau, their ultimate function is to prevent the bureau from distorting or concealing cost & production information to increase its bargaining power, & thereby to permit the budget office to ensure that the preferences of the state are at least approximately met. Performance standards & control rules also serve to avoid inconsistency between the budgeteer & the bureau, & to stabilize expectations about the ground rules for bargaining & the likely outcomes of the bargaining process so as to reduce the costs of uncertainty to both sides. 3 Figures, 30 References. HA.