PLS 503—Public Budgeting
I.
Tax Capacity is High but Tax Effort is Low (more
desirable)
Conn.
Mass.
N.H.
Delaware
Colorado
Wyoming
California
Nevada
II.
Tax Capacity is Low but Tax Effort is High (less
desirable)
Iowa
Kansas
South Dakota
Mississippi
Idaho
Utah
Background: Pick a government department or a non-profit agency. Make up a profile for the unit including the size of the service or customer population, the number of employees, the median salary for the unit, its mission, and at least three functions/services it provides. These will become your cost centers in the budget. Then go out and do your research. For example, if you are doing a recreation department, look at recreation departments in the region and get a sense of their budgets, personnel, expenses, salaries, etc. Get on the internet as well and check ICMA and other professional organizations for model budgets. Talk with people in recreation to make sure your expenses are reasonable and comparable. You will need to justify them later.
Line Item/ Program Budget: Now develop a line item budget for your unit or agency using a format similar to the one in the Data Sourcebook. Then develop at least three cost centers and allocate line items to each cost centers using the best estimates and rationales you can. Your interviews may help you with this.
Budget Narrative: For each line item in the budget, you should have a budget narrative or a short statement justifying the expense and indicating where (or how it was developed) the estimates came from. The narrative comes after the line item/program budget and should be cross-referenced using numbers…salaries maybe line item 1, and in the narrative 1.
Program Outputs/Outcomes: For each cost center, develop at least three output and outcome measures. Indicate exactly how these will be measured and where the data will come from. Be realistic. Ask about this in your interviews.