Budgeting & Financial Management
A budget is not just a collection of numbers, but an expression of our values and aspirations.” - Jack Lew
Most of my professional career I have worked in the areas of business transactions and contracting. This focus results in my constantly working with budget and finance staff. Due to this close connection between my work and finance, an understanding of budgeting and financial management significantly helps. My desire to remain in the public section and gain a greater, more in depth, understanding in the areas of budgeting and financial management was one of the primary reasons I selected the Rutgers MPA program with this concentration.
The work product examples on this page are selected to provide an overview of some of the public budgeting and financial management concepts I have learned during the MPA program.
The field of public budgeting and financial management includes a wide-range topics. Publications such as Government Finance Review published by the Government Finance Officers Association are a good resource in this field for current articles promoting best budgeting practices. The work product example provided below summarizes four articles from Government Finance Review related to improvement of the public budgeting process.
This work product example is a revised version of an assignment completed for my Public Budgeting Systems.
Ensuring adequate resources to pay for necessary capital improvements is a continual challenge for public entities. There are a variety of methods available to public entities for use in meeting this challenge. One such method, albeit somewhat controversial, is the use of exactions. The work product example provided below provides an overview of exactions including the rationale for and limits on their use.
This work product example is a revised version of an assignment completed for my Capital Budgeting & Debt Management class.
Due to the long-term commitment and useful life of capital assets, public entities need to engage in a separate capital budgeting process to address the unique requirements for the administration of those assets. One of the essential elements of such a process is financial forecasting. The work product example provided below provides an overview of different approaches to the use forecasting in connection with capital budgeting. The analysis concludes with a recommendation for the most effective approach to the use forecasting.
This work product example is a revised version of an assignment completed for my Capital Budgeting & Debt Management class.