Agency budgets and resource allocation strategies

Agency Budgets

For purposes of this discussion, I will concern myself with the budgets of three agencies. These include: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The Budgets in Brief

It is important to note, from the onset, that "budget formulation and execution are a major part of financial management, for through budgets money is distributed in attempt to meet social demand for goods and services" (McCaffery and Jones, 2001, p. 33).

The budgets of the three agencies highlighted above are all presented as plans to control future results/operations. They are presented as tools for the achievement of desired outcomes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency budget for the financial year 2015, in brief, seeks to support "implementation of the EPA's priorities through focused efforts to develop and implement creative, flexible, cost-effective, common sense and sustainable actions to fight climate change, to protect public health, and to safeguard the environment" (EPA, 2014). For this, the agency seeks a total of $7.89 billion. It should be noted that this is approximately 4% less than the agency's FY 2014 enacted budget.

Next, we have the FBI, with a Financial Year 2015 budget request of $8,374 million. It should be noted that this particular budget exceeds the agency's Financial Year 2014 enacted budget by approximately $3.9 million -- representing a 0.05% increase. A significant portion of the FY 2015 budget request, in this case, goes to the payment of salaries.

The U.S. Small Business Administration budget submission for the FY 2015 is designed to further enhance the agency's ability to offer assistance to small enterprises by, amongst other things, improving the said businesses' "access to capital, federal contracting opportunities, entrepreneurial development, and disaster assistance" (SBA, 2014). For the FY 2015, the agency requests a total of $710 million, which is essentially $100 million less than its $810 million total budget request for the FY 2014. Some of the key budget components for the FY 2015 include, but they are not limited to, administration of non-Stafford Act disasters, allocations to the Office of Advocacy and the Office of the Inspector general, and funding for business loan subsidies and non-credit programs (SBA, 2014).

The Most Appealing Budget