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Knoxtown Budget Process Paper

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A newly appointed finance director for Knoxtown will have many issues to review and resolve. Budget strife, reduction in service levels, loss of personnel, and reductions in benefits as well as no recent raises are disconcerting to everyone. An attempt to explain the politics and problems as well as solutions to a public budget and finance can be difficult and lengthy. There are many challenges to address as well as explanations of roles played and revenue sources. While the budgeting process is complicated, it should be understandable to everyone. There are three distinct, however not unique challenges in public finance and budgeting. Policies are one of the challenges as they are often times written in a language that politicians feel solves …show more content…

125). Preparation, approval and implementation are the main steps in the development of public budgets. First the preparation must be begin with the issuance of instructions from the executives, followed by the development of department budgets by the department managers. Once all departmental budgets are completed, they are sent to the central budget office for final review and revision before being sent to the elected officials for approval. Approval is issued by the elected officials after any necessary deliberations take place. Once approved by the elected officials, the budget is considered law and must be followed. The next step is implementation. The budget is constantly implemented as funds are released over the course of the year, reviewed for appropriate use and to verify the budget is in line with projections. Finally the budget must be reviewed at the end of the year by the budget office. A comparison is made between actual figures and budgeted figures. The information gathered in this final step is used in helping to determine future budgets (Bartle, Hildreth, & Marlowe, 2013). There are two major challenges to balancing public budgets. The many actors (e.g. CEO, CFO, department heads, staff, etc.) involved in the development of a public budget and span many departments, and many units in one department making the meeting and negotiating process difficult. Due to the many constraints of policy and the law, the budget process can be long and arduous with four steps stretched into many. These are a few of the many challenges involved in developing a balanced public

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