Jerry L. McCaffery

Implementing the Chief Financial Officers Act and the Government Performance and Results Act in the Federal Government

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 and the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, along with other legislation passed by Congress, are stimulating major financial management reform in the federal government. This article evaluates reform implementation against nine criteria developed in previous research on this topic. The criteria are accounting system adequacy, congressional intent, ability of Congress to use financial statement data, executive branch implementation incentives, capability of the Office of Management and Budget, utility of financial statements for decision-making, use of performance measures in budgeting, coordination of federal organizations charged with implementation responsibility, and executive and congressional support for reform.

Budgeting according to Wildavsky: a bibliographic essay

Aaron Wildavsky had an amazingly broad set of interests in social science and public policy as indicated in other articles in this symposium. A perusal of a recent curriculum vita reveals that he wrote or coauthored thirty books with several forthcoming, 186 articles and book chapters at latest count, and some additional papers awaiting publication. The topics covered in this vast oeuvre of books and articles, in unpublished casual papers, and in newspaper and magazine articles too numerous to count, reveal the incredible spectrum of his curiosity and knowledge. His work encompasses budgeting and fiscal policy (domestic and international), political culture, community power and leadership, risk analysis and safety, environmental policy, the American presidency, presidential elections, American diplomacy, U.S. oil and gas policy, the art and craft of policy analysis, policy implt1mentation, how to conduct research, how to read and write, academic collaboration, development and evolution of the social sci~nces, political and religious philosophy, Moses and Joseph as leaders and administrators, the politics of religion, the experience of his father as a youth in Poland, academic leadership and administration, communism and morality, the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, and more ... much more. To say that Aaron was a profound thinker and prolific writer runs the risk of understatement. Of this large body of material, Wildavsky wrote and coauthored nine books and forty articles and book chapters on budgeting and fiscal policy. It is this work that is reviewed selectively here. A bibliography of Wildavskys work on budgeting and fiscal policy is provided at the conclusion of this essay. Any attempt to survey the

Federal Financial Management Reform and The Chief Financial Officers Act

This study analyzes the development of financial management reform in the federal government. A series of reform initiatives culminated in passage of the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act that prescribes a wide spectrum of changes in federal accounting, budgeting, and financial reporting. The CFO Act may well be the most significant executive branch federal financial management reform since the adoption of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921.

The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990: The Path to No Fault Budgeting

The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, included in the controversial and comprehensive budget legislation passed by Congress in October, makes a number of significant changes in federal budgeting. It shifts the focus of the budget process from deficit reduction to spending control, provides five-year spending totals and mini-sequesters for defense, international and domestic appropriations, and puts entitlements and revenue expenditures on a pay-as-you-go basis. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit targets have been raised substantially, Social Security surpluses taken out of the deficit calculation and allowance made for further adjustments for inflation, Operation Desert Shield, and other emergency spending, minimizing the prospect for general sequestration. OMB has been given important new estimating authority and the roles of the congressional committees involved in budgeting have been altered.

Implementation of the Federal Chief Financial Officers Act

The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 proposes to rationalize the many financial practices and systems of the federal financial establishment. Due to the significant number and magnitude of the changes required by the Act, those involved in implementing the Act are encountering unanticipated practical problems and issues. This article addresses some of the surfacing difficulties, including, the qualifications of CFOs; implementation costs, standards, and authority; content of financial statements; and the scope of audits including performance measurement.

Defense Supplementals and the Budget Process

Supplemental appropriations provide emergency adjustments to the current year, usually for national defense contingencies and natural disaster emergencies. Recently, they have adopted some of the complexities of the regular appropriation process. For example, both the president and Congress may suggest when a supplemental is a dire emergency and thus beyond spending discipline and when it must be offset. Some supplementals have paid for non-emergency activities, others have resulted in funding decreases, and still others have resulted in spending in future years. Compared to the normal appropriation process, supplementals are usually passed expeditiously. Defense supplementals are generally precisely priced, whereas disaster supplementals tend to be lump sum estimates.

The Budget Enforcement Act in 1991: Isometric Budgeting

The immediate effect of the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) of 1990 was to cancel a pending

The Budget Enforcement Act in 1992: Necessary But Not Sufficient

110 billion sequester and to change the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit targets. These and other changes allowed Congress and the administration to escape responsibility for increases in the deficit if discretionary spending was kept within the caps and no new entitlement programs or revenue enhancements were added. This assumption and others relating to the empowerment of the Appropriations Committees and the new authority of the OMB are explored in this article.

Budget reform: The path to reform of process

The 1992 budget process followed the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA) script, although not without a protracted conflict concerning the walls separating the three categories of discretionary spending. The walls were retained, spending caps were met, and the process was timely. What deficit reduction occurred was the result of spending below the FY 1993 defense cap. Congress neither raised taxes nor cut entitlements to reduce the deficit further. The deficit grew significantly, driven by entitlement spending, chiefly health care programs. The limits of the BEA approach to spending control and deficit reduction became apparent.

Budgeting and Financial Management for National Defense

Budget reforms include reforms of technique and reforms of process. Turbulence in budgetary environment is producing calls for changes in reform of process, but no consensus now exist indicating the next dominant budget reform technique. Modified zero base systems continue to appear at sub-national levels, while calls for reform of the federal Congressional process multiply at the federal level.