Budgeting Process

After Zambia gained political independence their economy was doing better. Their economy was surrounded around their primary natural resource, copper. As copper sales went up, new medical buildings and schools were built, they had a promising textile industry and things were looking up. Until an unexpected rise in the price of oil in tandem with the dropping prices of copper forced Zambia to borrow from the IMF and world banks at extremely high interest rates. Soon Zambia found itself in a mountain of unpayable debts and to repay creditors, spending was cut to education and health and other infrastructure projects. Eventually all of the progress they have made goes to waste as it can not be maintained. Foreign countries currently dictate the economic policy via structural adjustment, i.e. policies that “should” increase revenue and allow them to pay the loans off. This inevitably leads to a country that is so dependent on foreign aid because their own industries have been destroyed by foreign influences.

One of the most difficult conditions to live with is a tight budget. You have no choice but to spend only what you have within your means or else you're going to be broke. Although there are many things that you may want to acquire, like beautiful houses, cars, jewelry and clothing, you can't buy them without putting a lot of strain on your budget. Restraining yourself from over spending is the best way to survive during these difficult times. In order to do this you need to do some responsible budget planning. This can be an overwhelming task for many but it's not impossible to do. There are many ways to do it but you will need a lot of patience and resourcefulness in order to come up with a perfect plan. Perfect in a way that it's going to work for you with the least difficulty and greatest results.

Citizens of the United States are legally required to pay taxes and follow the laws of their government. Thus far, with only having four weeks of interning at the House of Representatives, I have learned a lot about governmental accounting and politics. For example, one of the biggest complaints of American people is their increasing tax rates. Every year, the government has the responsibility of negotiating and preparing a budget for the upcoming years based primarily on taxpayer dollars. There is a long process that goes into creating a budget and allocating appropriations. But what happens when a major event occurs that cannot be appropriated ahead of time? This research paper will explore the budget process and how taxpayer dollars contribute, how appropriations are made, and what happens to the budget when the nation experiences an unexpected natural disaster or terrorist attack.

Idio, U. S. (2012). THE BUDGET AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL: ZERO BASE BUDGETING, PANACEA TO BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA. Global Journal of Social Sciences, 11(1), 1-7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1036581432?accountid=32521

I have contacted and met with Brownwood Police Department’s Assistant Chief James Fuller. He has been in this position the last six years and is responsible for the budgetary duties for our agency. The Brownwood Police Department is located in central Texas and is considered a smaller agency with 40 sworn personnel. We are the largest agency within a hundred mile radius. Last year the department operated on a 4.6 million dollar budget. The department serves a population of approximately 20 thousand. Through conversation Assistant Chief Fuller has agreed to assist in my studies with this course and provide information in regards to the budgetary process.

Police departments across the United States are spending a lot more money today on policing than they did 15 years ago, as demands have changed on what is required to effectively run an organization. Governments have put in place various budgeting systems that generally revolve around the adoption of a fiscal calendar which begins on the date new annual budget laws become effective. When the time comes to prepare for yearly budgets, most agencies run into issues due to lack of funding as they are asked “to do more with less” (Hess, Orthmann, Ladue, 2016, pg.483). The budgeting process from start to finish is not an easy task as many consider it to be one of the most challenging and stressful times during the year. Even though the process

ABSTRACT: This case1 provides an opportunity to study budgets, budget variances, and performance evaluation at several levels. As a purely mechanical problem, the case asks for calculations of various price, efficiency, spending, and volume variances from a set of budgets and actual results. The case is also an interpretive exercise. After the variances have been computed, the next step is to develop plausible conjectures about their likely causes. Finally, it is a case about performance evaluation and responsibility accounting. The company has an incentive plan, based on the budget

The parliament should play an active role in ensuring the availability and credibility of fiscal information. There should be clear procedure for budget execution, monitoring, and reporting. The accounting system should provide a reliable basis for tracking revenues, commitments, payments, arrears, liabilities, and assets, writes M S Siddiqui

Managing the budgets is also a public administrator's role. For this reason, they are in charge of expenditure and revenue. In their performance, public administrators should obey

All organizations strive to streamline operations, which in turn should lead to saving money. Fighting the wasting of resources should be a top priority for any government entity and particularly for supervisors, managers, and executives. In the public sector this is particularly true because the citizens in effect supply the resources wasted. The public trust should not be abused by careless or needless spending. However, because of the bureaucratic nature of any government agency, some waste cannot readily be avoided. The laws and regulations that have been duly enacted to secure justified expenditures in and of themselves can cause waste.

According to Seda (2009), the organization of government accounts in Indone-sia was originally rooted in the Dutch budgetary system in the colonialial era, called Indische Comptabiliteitswet (ICW) and instituted in 1867. After gaining independence, Indonesian politics began ‘the old order era’ marked by the rule of its first president, Soekarno. During this time, the new state adapted the Dutch budget system, which was highly centralized and consisted of two sim-plified groups - income and expenditure, without a system of checks and bal-ances by level or part of government. The expenditures side included routine expenditure and capital expenditure and the central government held complete authority to allocate the budget and formulate a development program. The law Number 5 Year 1974 regulated the basic principles of local government, however, the state system in practice was still centralized in all manners (Smoke & Lewis, 1996). The second president, Soeharto, also ran the government in a centralistic, authoritarian style, therefore the budgetary system remained both formulated and decided upon by the central government. This only changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 1999.

In Tanzania ambitions to reform program to improve public sector financial management, which initially focused on introducing effective and efficient budget formulation and expenditure management systems started in 1994 .Two, projects financed by Swedish International Development Agency(SIDA) ,the Government Accounting Development Project (GADP) and the Interim Budget Development Project (IBDP) were formed to pursue a solution for efficient and effective budget formulation and expenditure (IMF,2005)

The major functions of the government are the police, fire and sanitation. Therefore, governmental funds are necessary for accountability of the cash inflows and outflows, which is by recording and balancing the cash, liabilities and all the information required for various activities. The government uses the modified accrual basis of accounting for its funds; this implies that all money collected and spent by the government is recorded on a regular basis. The government accounts for its funds on a short term and the financial accounting period. Government funds include: general funds, special revenue funds, capital project funds, debt service funds and permanent funds.

A good Public Financial Management (PFM) system is essential for the implementation of policies and the achievement of developmental objectives by supporting aggregate fiscal discipline, strategic allocation of resources and efficient service delivery. An open and orderly PFM system is one of the enabling elements for those three levels of budgetary outcomes:

Past reforms on public expenditure management have not worked well as the executive arm of the government has consistently failed to act on various recommendations of the watchdog institutions on the mismanagement of public funds. Similarly, the stated war against corruption, which is rampant in the public expenditure management, is yet to be won mainly due to legal technicalities encountered in trying to establish an effective and independent anti-corruption authority. There is therefore need for a thorough examination of the fiscal systems with a view to formulating pragmatic remedial measures (Baumol, 2003).