Government Overview Final Project

Feedback for student

Grace,

You completed the week 1 assignment by posting by the deadline and meeting the minimum word count requirement.

Regarding the content, you touched on the elements, but you did not explain the budget cycle (schedule) or list the different positions in the city regarding who is responsible for what part of the budget cycle. Also, a significant portion of revenue for a city is fees, such as water and sewer, trash collection, building permits, other types of permits, etc.

Your writing is well done without grammatical error.

Budget Cycle

Professor P. May

AJS/574

Grace Acevedo

July 19, 2020

Budget Cycle

The budget cycle is an essential process for any government operation or small business ventures. The process helps in maximizing resource utilization while maintaining accountability. The following are the processes that best describes the budget cycle to be followed by the city council.

Development of the Cycle

The development of the budget is the first step of the cycle. In this step, there is a need to determine the amount of resources required to cater to the city council's needs. However, the estimated resources would be known to determine all the needs of the various sections of the city council. In this step, there is the determination of the measures to take in covering the expenses that cannot be covered by the resources at the council's disposal. In my role of budgetary director, my leadership will help determine what to include in the budget and what will be exempted. I will compare the anticipated resources against the expenses such as employees' salaries, among others. The development of the cycle will entail the cooperation of junior and senior management. The highlighted individuals need to be members of the financial committee. Junior managers are adequately informed about the needs of their departments. As such, they have an idea of areas requiring financial resources and the required amount of allocation.

Execution

Execution of the budget is the next process that follows in the budget cycle after approval from the relevant authorities. The stringent measures placed on government resources mean that no resources could be utilized unless the right signatories approve. According to Najimi (2018), execution is the most important step in the budget cycle. The author noted that the improper execution of the approved budget results in the inability to achieve the city council's desired outcomes. To prevent the council's funds from being impounded by the state government, there would be a need to ensure proper utilization of the allocated resources. Characteristically, record management would be of great importance to enable agencies to check on resource utilization, such as the auditors to do their work. The role of executing the budget cycle is entrusted to the city's budget director. The budget director will be in charge of ensuring the allocation of resources while looking out for dockets that have higher allocations than others. The execution stage becomes the base of comparison in the future budget cycles.

Evaluation

Evaluation is the last phase of the budget cycle that entails the assessment of resources to determine the appropriate and effective utilization of the allocated financial resources. In order to ensure transparency in the evaluation process, there would be a need to involve independent parties to help in the evaluation process. Garman and Forgue (2011) highlighted evaluation as occurring at the end of the budgeting process. Evaluation of the county council’s budget cycle would be essential in capturing changes to be implemented in the budget cycle for the next financial budget process. Aspects such as the changes in expenses, changes in costs of products and services could be considered in the evaluation. The evaluation would capture the effective utilization of resources to determine an area requiring changes to maximize resource utilization. Evaluation of the budget cycle would be by individuals appointed in the internal control systems. Still, the evaluation would also be by the independent agencies as mandated by the federal or state government. Though, the issue of concern is where these agencies are transparent enough to give a true representation of the state of affairs in the city council.

Available Funds

Funds available to the city council are the federal categorical grants, project grants, and the proceeds from tax collections. Earlier governments had applied for the allocation of funds to projects that would benefit the immediate community. The received finds would cover the anticipated projects. The federal categorical grants are the primary source of revenue for the local government. These funds would help cater to social amenities such as health care and improving access to education. The funds would also help in the provision of social services, environmental protection, and community development. The categorical grants accompany conditions stipulating the utilization of funds. As such, the utilization of the finds would be in line with the conditions put by the government.

References

Garman, E. T. & Forgue, R. (2011).Personal Finance. Cengage Learning

Najimi, B. (2018). Gender and Public Participation in Afghanistan: Aid, transparency and Accountability. Springer