Government: Comparison of Three Budgets

Government: Comparison of Three Budgets In the past few years, the chosen budget strategies of various branches of government have emerged as a pressing concern for citizens, city employees, and government officials alike. The budgets of these branches differ in regards to their budget management, budgets calendar, different types of revenue, and the major sources of revenue for each.

All the budgets of governmental agencies share the goal of significantly cutting costs, to reduce their scope of operations through outsourcing, and to improve flexibility and responsiveness through the empowerment of management. These trends are increasingly supported by new developments in information technology and information systems. Technological advances, supported by increased user expertise and familiarity with technology, have allowed budget management to break away from its' traditional constraints.

In addition to difficulties in identifying and measuring potential benefits and costs, problems inflicted as a result of growing dependence on information technology have forced many governmental agencies to establish management control mechanisms. This paper will compare and contrast the budgets of Clark County in Nevada, the State of Nevada, and the White House's Office of Budget and Management. Nevada's Clark County look at Clark County's Website indicates that Clark County's overall budget is the smallest of the three.

For the current year, 2006, Clark County's estimated budget for general government expenses is $231,333,343. Judicial expenses total $158,819,249; public safety at $1,064,883,910; health at $120,917,500; and community support at $13,862,194. These numbers are only slightly larger to Clark County's 2005 expenses in each category. The amount of total revenues for Clark County in property taxes are $582,139,688; $250,538,064 for licenses and permits; $13,022,896 for fines and forfeits; and $1,353,971,713 for inter-governmental resources. Out of these departments, Clark County's total government employees for 2006 are 1,390 judicial employees; 1,868 public safety employees; 225 sanitation employees and 15 community support employees.

The total population of Clark County for 2006 is 1,912,026. These figures are consistently lower than the budget expenses and revenues of the budget of the State of Nevada, whose number lie in the millions. The Office of Budget and Management's figures lie in the billions, and the main differences between the three lies in the type of budget spending. As reflected above, the budget spending for Clark County appears to be very localized to that specific county.

The budget spending for the State of Nevada is larger than Clark County, through the sponsorship of statewide funded projects, such as construction projects. Finally, the budget spending of the Office of Budget and Management is the largest, as a result of the spending and revenues generated by government programs that the other two governmental agencies do not have.

In order to increase revenues, Clark County has instituted their Capital Improvement Program (CIP), a five-year plan which is reviewed and updated annually in conjunction with the preparation of the County's operating budget. The CIP's mission is to finance infrastructure improvements, government facility construction, and equipment acquisition.

The goals of CIP are to: 1) access capital needs; 2) identify funding sources for those capital projects/programs, which will provide the greatest return on investment in terms of meeting the increasing demand for infrastructure, public facilities and services; 3) establish priorities among projects to increase the utility of County resources; 4) improve financial planning through disclosure of future bond issues and assessment of fiscal impact. Clark County's capital budget process includes short-term and long-term projects.

Short-term projects include general fixed assets with a relatively short life such as information technology related equipment and software, vehicles and furniture, and facility renovations and major maintenance programs such as funding for countywide roof repairs, painting and flooring. The long-term projects of Clark County include infrastructure projects such as roadways, flood control, Fire Department plan, Detention center expansion, and regional parks and recreation centers. Long-term projects requiring a substantial source of funding typically require long-term financing.

The County Capital Projects Fund is the primary source of capital for general fund department capital projects. Funding sources are budgeted transfers and other transfers resulting from unanticipated revenues and monies saved through position vacancies and cost-containment measures. The State of Nevada's budget contained a different means of funding sources; for example, while Clark county relies on position vacancies as a means of cost containment, the State of Nevada recently actually instituted a wage increase for public works projects.

The State of Nevada and Clark County appear to have a different manner of meeting budget deficiencies. The Office of Budget and Management has an amount of finances reserved for supplemental and emergency funding, at a total of $153.1 billion dollars. Neither Clark County nor the State of Nevada appears to have emergency or supplemental funding in their budgets. State of Nevada The budget for the State of Nevada is larger than Clark County.

The total 2006 budget for the State of Nevada is reported to be $2,400 million dollars with a deficit of -2.3%. The state of Nevada's transportation budget for 2006 was $4.6 million dollars; agriculture $21.1 million; education $56.6 million; health and human services $69.2 million; and $21.0 million for justice programs. These amounts are considerably higher than Clark County in comparison. The State of Nevada's Department of Business and Industry recently released a new prevailing wage rate for public works projects for Nevada's 17 counties.

The rate increase was based on survey responses submitted by contractors in Nevada's construction industry regarding wages paid on non-residential construction projects. These rates go into effect on October 1, 2006 and the State of Nevada plans to post these rates ahead of time to give people a chance to look at the need for any clerical or technical corrections before they go into effect.

This differs from the smaller budget of Clark County, who appears to not have the means to conduct a survey such as this one to evaluate a wage increase. Clark County relies on its CIP program to look for ways to decrease budget spending, not increase wages. The White House's Office of Budget and Management The White House's Office of Budget and Management has the largest budget and revenue income of the three governmental branches examined.

For 2006, the defense/military budget was $410.8 billion dollars; homeland security was $30.5 billion dollars; housing and urban development was $34.1 billion dollars; veterans affairs was $33.1 billion dollars; environmental protection agency was $7.6 billion dollars, and social security administration was $6.9 billion dollars. This differs from the budgets of Clark County and State of Nevada in that these budgets do not even include for programs such as these. Therefore, the budget of the Office of Budget and.