Kenneth A. Klase

Fiscal Retrenchment in State Budgeting: Revisiting Cutback Management in a New Era

Abstract The eight states in the Mid-Atlantic region used a variety of methods to reduce budgets during the recession of the early 2000s. Their behavior was consistent with what had been seen previous recessions. They were similar to the classic cutback strategies and the administrative response models discussed in the literature. The findings have the potential to be instructive as to how states will handle similar situations in the future.

The impact of performance budgeting on state budget outcomes

Little empirical analysis has occurred of the influence of performance-based budgeting on appropriation decision-making or budget outcomes, and most research has focused on the perceptions of budget officials. This research empirically tests to what extent the implementation of performance-based budgeting has had an impact on the actual allocation of resources in the form of Constant Per Capita Expenditures in the states. A pooled cross-sectional analysis is used to evaluate the time series encompassing before and after implementation as a means of determining the impact of performance budgeting on state budgeting outcomes as revealed in expenditure patterns of the states. Results indicate that the implementation of performance budgeting has a statistically significant and positive effect on budget outcomes in the states as measured by constant per capita expenditures.

Accounting for human resource development in the public sector

This article evaluates the merits of utilizing human resource accounting (HRA) concepts to account for human resource development (HRD) in the public sector. It describes the development of the economic theory of human capital and the increasing recognition of human resources as human assets of public organizations to be managed and accounted for in a manner similar to capital assets. The development of HRA concepts concerning human resource value and cost is discussed. These HRA concepts are applied to HRD and to current and potential uses in external financial reporting and internal managerial accounting in public organizations. This article concludes that the application of HRA concepts to HRD would have significant benefit for the operational and strategic management of human resources in public organizations. Using HRA information in internal managerial decision making would demonstrate the value gained in excess of costs incurred for such activities. The application of HRA concepts in pubic organiza...

The relationships between public finance issues, financial management issues, and conditions of fiscal stress in small and rural governments: the case of west Virginia

Small and rural communities face severe fiscal constraints. Many factors affect governance in these localities. Because of this, a vital concern are the relationships between “Fiscal Stress” and other factors. Multivariate analysis techniques are utilized to examine these relationships based on data collected from a survey of West Virginia local public officials. The analysis showed that “Public Finance” and “Financial Management” factors affect Fiscal Stress while external factors, such as professionalism, population, and metropolitan status, have little to no impact on Fiscal Stress. Additionally, Public Finance and Financial Management issues are critical to explaining Fiscal Stress in small and rural governments and Fiscal Stress is critical in explaining Public Finance and Financial Management issues. However, the relationships are not of equal strength; Fiscal Stress and Public Finance influence each other more strongly than Financial Management factors.

Service Challenges and Governance Issues Confronting American Counties in the 21st Century: An Overview

The American county?long consid ered to be the bedrock of local gov ernment in the United States?has grown in importance since the middle of the 20th century. Between 1962 and 2002, the county government share of county and municipal revenues grew from 39.3 to 47.3 percent, and expenditures grew from 33.7 to 46.5 percent. As a consequence of this substantial growth in county financial activity, there has been a con comitant and stunning increase in the types and level of county government services. Re latedly, the county workforce has increased dramatically, more than tripling in size from around 700,000 full-time equivalent employ ees in 1962 to 2.3 million in 2002. In 2002, county employees accounted for 48.6 per cent of the county and municipal workforce compared with 35.7 percent in 1962. Today, counties employ almost as many people as do municipalities. Coincident with this growth, American counties face a number of challenges as ser vice-delivery agents and instruments of gov ernance in the early 21st century. Viewed from a global perspective, perhaps the most daunting challenge is whether or not coun ties can meet the myriad and far-flung expec tations that accompany the service roles coun ties are expected to play. A growing number of county governments must simultaneously function as traditional, local, and regional governments (see Benton 2002a). As tradi tional governments, counties serve as ad ministrative or political arms of their state governments and thus perform a number of state functions (many of them mandated) and services to all county residents.1 When counties function as local governments, they provide municipal-type services to residents of unincorporated areas.2 In addition, densely populated counties often serve as regional governments when they provide urban-type services to residents of both unincorporated and incorporated areas.3 This enlargement of the service role and prominence of counties and the wholly new approach to daily operations that is required means that county governments must deal with several governance issues. Indeed, these issues are part and parcel of the very essence of counties as they strive to provide tradi tional as well as municipaland urban-type services and meet the heightened expecta tions of democratic governance. As function ing full-service governments, three questions in particular are salient. First, what is the most suitable form of county government in terms of responsiveness to escalating service expectations and ability to negotiate with

The Effects of Benchmarking of Public Works Performance Measures on the Cost-Effectiveness of Service Delivery Evidence From the North Carolina Benchmarking Project

This research is an empirical analysis of the effects of the benchmarking of Efficiency Performance Measures on total costs for six Public Works service delivery areas based on data over the period 1998 to 2011 from municipalities participating in the North Carolina Performance Measurement Project, a well-established and nationally recognized performance measurement and benchmarking system. The results of this research are significant in providing empirical evidence that the benchmarking of Efficiency Performance Measures for the six Public Works service delivery areas had modestly positive impacts on total cost-effectiveness in a significant percentage of these Public Works service delivery areas. The results reflect that management decision-making utilizing performance measures in a benchmarking context, especially in Public Works service delivery areas, can be effective and that performance measurement and benchmarking can achieve identifiable efficiencies and modest improvements in cost-effective outcomes in Public Works service delivery areas over time.

Environmental dimensions of managing public budgets and public enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the nature of the environment in which public budgets and public enterprises are managed in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. It develops a model of the environmental dimensions in the general environment and dimensional components in the task environment of public budgeting and public enterprise management including the economic, political, socio-cultural, and technological dimension which determine public budget and public enterprise management in developing countries like those in Sub-Saharan Africa. The implications of those environmental dimensions and their components are evaluated for budgetary processes and budgetary outcomes in selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa - Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. The impact of economic dimensions in inducing repetitive budgeting in the budgetary processes of developing countries was highlighted. The results of the analysis of expenditure patterns in these countries tend to support the greater strength of the economic fun...