Rethinking Budgeting Reports

Budgeting for Equity

Many local governments are taking an interest in “budgeting for equity,” which, broadly defined, means allocating local government resources in a way that is intended to address unfair disparities between different groups of people, such as racial groups or income groups. View Report

What's Fair? Group Dynamics

Making decisions in groups is an integral part of a public finance officer’s job. However, group decision-making tends to have unique and predictable shortcomings that threaten to derail decision-making on everything from staff meetings to budget discussions with the public. View Report

What's Fair? The Three Forms of Fairness

Issues of fairness and justice are central to the work of all government officials, given their roles and power are granted by the will of their constituents and their work can empower and limit the livelihood of those same people. In this series of reports, we will focus on the role of the finance officer. View Report

What's Fair? Negotiation and Persuasion

As finance officers work with senior administrators and elected officials to make public finance decision-making fairer, they will need to influence how government functions. Improving the way government functions depends on changing the perspectives of those involved. View Report

What's Fair? Distrust, Opposition, and the Political Extremes

We can think of people at the political extremes as being more sensitive to how government policy matches or does not match their moral values. Thus, understanding the moral concerns behind their opposition and distrust will be needed to have productive conversations. View Report

What's Fair? Equity, Equality, and Fairness

Many local governments are grappling with the concept of “equity” in budgeting. Equity is one interpretation of fairness or justice. A central theme in debates about fairness and justice is equality versus equity. View Report

What's Fair? Understanding Political Polarization with Moral Psychology

How we decide what is just and fair is rooted in moral thinking. Different opinions on justice and fairness can stem from different values and how those values are applied. A leading theory in moral psychology is Moral Foundations Theory. View Report

Budget Games

This report delves into the tactics or “games" used by participants in the budget process to secure more resources. Read about the tactics used and how to beat them. View Report

Many Choices and Many People

Budget decisions today are often made in an environment of high conflict and low trust. This is not surprising given that conflict is up, and trust is down in the United States, generally. View Report

Budget Officer as Decision Architect

Organizations benefit from decision architecture. Budget officers can be the decision architects of local government by building on four job responsibilities that allow them to reduce the impact of well-known problems of bias and noise in human decision processes. View Report

The Accountability Trap

Local governments are being asked to deal with complex and difficult problems, like drug abuse, climate change, social inequalities and more. Given the high stakes of the issues there can be a justifiable interest that the government (and its staff) be held “accountable.” View Report

The Myth of the Neutral Finance Officer

A popular conception of the public finance officer is as a neutral arbiter, perhaps like an umpire in a baseball game who calls balls and strikes. However, psychological and design research shows that the environment we exist within has a distinct influence on the choices we make. View Report

Designing for the Decision-Making Environment

People are not rational, yet we often assume they are. For example, classical economics is based on the assumption that people are rational maximizers of their self-interest. However, recent Nobel Prize-winning scientific research has shown this is not true. View Report

Breaking the Law of Triviality

Budget officers often witness governing boards spending excessive time debating minor expenses, like office supplies, while approving multimillion-dollar projects with little discussion. This common phenomenon, known as Parkinson’s Law of Triviality. View Report

Rethinking Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a long-standing “best practice” in public finance. This is for good reason, as it is important to think strategically and long term in a volatile and resource-constrained environment. View Report

Defining the Problem: The Missing Piece to Local Government Planning

The traditional budget and planning process is ill-equipped to deal with the complex problems created by volatility and conflict. View Report

Should We Rethink Reserves?

This paper brings what we have learned together with university research to describe new opportunities for local governments to get the best value from their reserve strategies. View Report

Rethinking Public Engagement

The budget is the most important policy document that a local government produces. As such, it has been recognized for decades that local governments should do better at engaging citizens in the budget process. View Report

Zero-Base Budgeting

Zero-base budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting process that asks managers to build a budget from the ground up, starting from zero. View Report

Anatomy of a Priority-Driven Budget Process

Governments have traditionally used incremental budgeting, but priority-driven budgeting provides a more strategic alternative. View Report

Budget Games

This report delves into the tactics or “games" used by participants in the budget process to secure more resources. Read about the tactics used and how to beat them. View Report

Budgeting is Better with Rhythm

Local government budget offices need to establish a rhythm for the internal budget process. A lack of rhythm can lead to two big problems. View Report

Bridging Political Divides in Local Government

Political polarization is the leading social rift of our time. Perhaps the clearest example is the U.S. federal government. This report presents a proven method for bridging political divides, based on the latest scientific research. View Report

Power Politics and Budgeting

“Power politics” is the use of power for selfish gain at the expense of broader community. This is incompatible with the purpose of local government budgeting. However, the finance officer can “change the game” and redirect the energy of power politics to more constructive ends. View Report

Time for Change: A Practical Approach to Rethinking Police Budgeting

The need for a new look at police and public safety has wide popular support. However, the path forward is not clear. Local governments need a way to reach good decisions about police funding—the traditional local government budgeting system is not up to the task. View Report

City of Arlington Wins Fiscal Fluency Challenge

This paper explains how Arlington, Texas, won GFOA's Fiscal Fluency Challenge. Arlington created videos to make public finance easy to understand. They used themes like “Build, Unite, Create,” comparing budgeting to a Lego set, and “Budget Bites,” which was styled like a cooking show. View Report

Simplifying Complexity

Reality is complex; mental models simplify it. A mental model is a tool that helps us make sense of the world and manage complexity and large amounts of information. This report will explain how you can use mental models to enhance understanding and decision-making in public finance. View Report

Fiscal Fluency Made Easy

Numbers are at the core of a public finance officer’s job. A big part of the job is communicating those numbers to other people. The challenge is that numbers are not a first language for many people in the finance officer’s audience. View Report

Of Narratives and Numbers

It is probably safe for us to assume that finance officers are more comfortable with numbers than most of the decision-makers that the finance officer supports. These decision-makers are likely more comfortable with narratives. View Report

Addressing Resource Inequities Between Governments

Local government fragmentation refers to the fact that local governments are broken into many, often overlapping, jurisdictions. In aggregate local governments spend a great deal of money. It is reasonable to ask if the public’s interest would be better served by better coordination of government at the local level. View Report

Government as a Platform: Plugging in the Best Service Providers

Local government fragmentation refers to the fact that local governments are broken into many, often overlapping, jurisdictions. In aggregate local governments spend a great deal of money. View Report

Network Enterprises: An Information Age Solution to Enduring Problems?

Local government fragmentation refers to the fact that governments are broken into many, often overlapping, jurisdictions. In combination, local governments spend a lot of money. It is reasonable to ask if the public’s interest would be better served by better coordination. View Report

Does Consolidating Local Governments Work?

There are over 90,000 units of local government in the United States providing services such as education, public safety, public health, utilities, transportation, recreational opportunities, vital record keeping, natural resource conservation, and more. View Report