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How things work, Taxes

How government budgets work

By Karl • February 29, 2012

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Government budgets fund the Washington state capital
Government budgets, how they work

Whether you’re trying to get a sweet-ass government job, planning to run for office, want to know how you can influence the process to your favor, or you’re just a concerned citizen, knowing how the federal state, county, and cities create a government budget, and knowing how government budgets work in general will help you.  So become involved and go to a local budget hearing, and after reading this article, you’ll sound like someone in the know whose opinions should be respected.

The first thing to know is governments don’t budget like you and I do.  We see how much money we have coming in, and work from there, paying our expenses.  If our expenses are too great, we cut something back or try and earn more money.  Almost anything is on the table for us; we start with a zero-based budget, meaning we build our expenses and revenues up from zero.

Governments, however, budget based on an incremental basis.  This means that their budgets start where they did last year (or the last biennium if they budget on a two-year cycle) and they either add or subtract from the last budget.  Generally, the cost of government continues to increase due to contract and agreements that they have made with labor and unions, and employer medical costs.  For example, the annual increases in costs include a cost of living adjustment (COLA), any mandatory “merit” increases, any contractual increases due to union bargaining agreements made in the past, and the cost of providing employee medical benefits, which recently have been increasing at 7-10% a year.

The incremental method to government budgets
Governments budget changes, not absolute values

Most governments set these increases and use that as a starting point for the next year’s budget.  Basically last year’s service levels at this year’s cost.  The various departments or agencies in a government build their budgets from this point, adding or subtracting costs, initiatives, and services.  A justification process exists where changes, and especially increases in cost or service must be well justified with copious paperwork and by filling out the correct forms.  Yes, even the government has to fill out government forms!  Done across the entire government, these departmental budgets are accumulated and rolled-up to form a full budget.  This is the bottoms-up portion.

Next, the Executive and Legislative branches create a tops-down budget, usually with large but unspecified reductions that must be made in order to balance the budget.  Negotiations take place between and within both branches of government.  Additionally, many municipalities have other elected officials that have separate budgets.

If this sounds like a long and complicated process, it certainly is.  Many municipalities and states have a budget process that take more than 6 months, and sometimes this process extends for 9 or 10 months for each budget.  One of the reasons that it takes such a long time for the budget process is you likely have several separate levels of authority and differing version of the budget that need to be reconciled among different political groups and different elected officials.  For example you may have a legislative branch with two houses, each controlled by different political parties, and each with a separate version of the next budget.

Government jobs are driven by the budgets
Each political group could have a different version of the budget

Additionally, each member of the legislative and executive branches will have pet projects that they want funded, will have certain constituents that are more vocal, and certain special interest groups that need to get paid back for providing election campaign money.  This obviously makes for a long and involved process of trading off votes and interests.  Much like sausage, you don’t really want to see government budgets being made at this level, it makes you nauseous.

The details and timing will vary depending on the structure of the governments and agencies involved, whether it is a board, a council, or a single mayor, but the influence and backroom deals are constant across all of them.  Now you can ace that government job interview, influence you representatives without spending thousands of dollars, and understand where your tax money is going.

 

Readers, what are your experiences with government budgets?  Have you ever read a budget document or helped to create one?  What can you use in your own budget that governments use, perhaps the cut from last year’s numbers?

Karl

Karl Nygard is the original founder of Cult of Money and created the website to share his ideas on investing, personal finance, and more.

Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, or other advertiser and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

Comment Policy: We invite readers to respond with questions or comments. Comments may be held for moderation and are subject to approval. Comments are solely the opinions of their authors’. The responses in the comments below are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any company. It is not anyone’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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YFS
11 years ago

I can honestly say I do not know how government works when it comes to budgets at all. wow.. this sound pretty damn complicated. Is there anyways to streamline the process a bit? 6 months + a 9 month extension is ridiculous!

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Modest Money
11 years ago

So this is how all those corrupt politicians manage to mess up the budget each year. It does sound like it would be extremely complicated when everyone has their own personal agenda.

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Author
Karl
11 years ago
Reply to  Modest Money

The thing is, it doesn’t even need to be corrupt politicians, it really is all the politicians. Whether they have a personal topic that they care deeply about because they think it is the right thing, or because a large donor wants some payback, the result is the same, namely very personalize parts of the budget that get traded off for votes or approval.

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Christopher
11 years ago

I didnt know govts did budgeting. I thought they just tossed around some figures and said this is what we think next year…and next year rolls around and they are way off from that!

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Author
Karl
11 years ago
Reply to  Christopher

Oh yes indeed, there is extensive budgeting. Also, remember that local governments just can’t borrow and print their way out of problems like the federal government. So they do need to allocate their available money. Many governments call their budget the largest policy document they produce because of all the decisions they make.

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Andrew @ 101 Centavos
11 years ago

Governments *subtracting* from their budgets? Why on earth would they go and do a crazy thing like that?

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Author
Karl
11 years ago
Reply to  Andrew @ 101 Centavos

Andrew, again, local governments do need to cut budgets occasionally, mostly in recessions before the tax increase catch up with falling property values. 🙂

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Rick @ Invest In 2012
11 years ago

I was hesitant to say that governments don’t need budgets (since they basically just spend, spend, spend), but that would be a little rude (and also incorrect).

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Author
Karl
11 years ago
Reply to  Rick @ Invest In 2012

I think it would be the opposite, without a budget they would spend, spend, spend. The budget at least puts a cap on it.

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Joyce
11 years ago

Funny how some governments advise families to run their budgets properly, yet if we based it on the example of governments most of us would end up bankrupt.

0
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