Public Budgeting the Agency Name

Public Budgeting The agency name is the Department of Education. The name of the proposal is the Arts Funding Initiative. The need identified is that schools, particularly those struggling to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind, are cutting arts and music programs in order to focus on NCLB. This is to the detriment of children in those schools and we want to find a way to encourage schools to retain these programs. The program, when implemented, will work at the NCLB level.

The funds will be used to study the impact of NCLB on arts funding and the number of arts programs. The program will then see to devise incentives that can be implemented within NCLB to encourage principals and school boards to maintain arts and music programs so that there is better retention or reinstitution of these programs. The first year costs will be approximately $200,000. The administration of this program will be covered by existing resources, so the cost is going to be to put together the initial study.

Future year costs will be $400,000 for each of the next two years. This will allow for the second phase of the program to be implemented. A consultant will need to work with the DoE to determine the means of motivation that will not only work with school boards but can be implemented with amendments to the legislation. As there are two distinct phases to this project, there will be two measures of success. The first will be if the study yields concrete information.

The second will be if legislative changes can be compiled and recommended. The project itself will not be measured on the success of any legislative changes -- the objective is to bring something to Congress. There will not be any major structural changes required -- existing resources will be deployed to monitor the progress of the study and the work of the consultant. 1) the agency budget officer's perspective is as the manager of the agency's finances.

The budget officer is detached with respect to the choice of projects or their implementation, but makes recommendations with respect to the financial implications of managerial decisions. The agency budget officer must place emphasis on the budget, ensuring that the agency's expenditures are met by its fund-raising efforts. The budget officer often contributes to debate, but as a provider of financial information. The other senior staff then use this information in their decision-making.

The budget officer is oriented towards making sure that funds are used efficiently and that the agency is receiving good value for its expenditures. 2) it is important for an agency to cultivate a clientele because it provides the agency with a visible, definable target audience for its services. Agencies that rely on public funding must continually justify their existence to a variety of different stakeholders, both in government and in the community. Elected officials in particular are answerable to the community.

What a clientele does is that it demonstrates to the community and to government officials the need for the agency as an ongoing enterprise. The agency can point to this clientele to show the work they have done in the past and the continued need for this work in the future. Having a clientele also allows the agency to gain a sense of internal direction as well. Employees of the agency have a more clear sense of mandate when there is a definable clientele as well.

This helps with direction, with effectiveness and with efficiency. Question 2. Issues assessments are conducted so that government or its agencies can learn about the variety of issues surrounding a specific subject. The issues assessment can be conducted with respect to a program or proposed program, with respect to a parcel of land or proposed development, or with respect to a subject matter such as transportation, housing, homelessness or other key issue. Within each of these issues will be a number of other issues of import to the individual stakeholders.

It is the purpose of the issues assessment to uncover each of these sub-issues pertaining to the subject, so that the best course of action can be undertaken. Question 3. Time series analysis is valuable because it relies on fine analysis of past data. This allows for budgeting based on past behavior of the numbers, and is flexible with respect to the number of statistical tools that can be applied to the technique (Rabin, 1992).

The main weakness of time series analysis is that it does not accurately take into account fundamental changes behind the numbers, either in the present or even the near past. This can skew the projections. Qualitative analysis is strong because it relies on "the unique ability of the human brain to perceive relationships" (Ibid). Qualitative analysis is weak, however, because budgeting is a highly numbers-oriented task.

While qualitative offers value as a complimentary tool, it is unable to capture long-term trends in numbers, deviations and other events that are best identified statistically. Causal techniques expand beyond.