Effectiveness in Budgeting in Local Government

Reflection

Budgets are important and most commonly used in households to minimize expenses. Budget is the way to divide equally the money into different needs. The expenditure should not be greater than the income, whether in one family or in a business enterprise. For an instance, one company or business enterprise must allocate budgets for their needs like additional infrastructure, materials or machines, which in later part of their business can to return in terms of their profit. There is a specific sector that handles the budget and they are called Budget Officers or Finance Manager.

There are two purposes of budgeting:

1. Provide a forecast of revenues and expenditures i.e. construct a model of how our business might perform financially speaking if certain strategies, events and plans are carried out.

2. Enable the actual financial operation of the business to be measured against the forecast.

The government also need the budget and must properly distribute it in the sectors that really in need of it, whether to expand the road or construction of a school facility in their municipality.

A government budget is a legal document that is often passed by the legislature, and approved by the chief executive-or president. For example, only certain types of revenue may be imposed and collected. The two basic elements of any budget are the revenues and expenses. In the case of the government, revenues are derived primarily from taxes. Government expenses include spending on current goods and services, which economists call government consumption; government investment expenditures such as infrastructure investment or research expenditure; and transfer payments like unemployment or retirement benefits.

Budgets have an economic, political and technical basis. Unlike a pure economic budget, they are not entirely designed to allocate scarce resources for the best economic use. They also have a political basis wherein different interests push and pull in an attempt to obtain benefits and avoid burdens. The technical element is the forecast of the likely levels of revenues and expenses.

In some aspect the government budget differs from the household budget or enterprise budget. It differs from the process where the governments obtain the budget and where the expense will be done. From a simple way, the abusive officials find the budget as a part of taking part into a corruption. That is why a project proposal should be given to the Budget Department with a specific details and proper studies. The officer who handles this sector of government should be faithful in serving the community and must weigh the right. The budget officer usually took another series of investigation if the certain budget is really needed and if it is favorable to the community. The Budget officer is not entitled to go alone in his investigation, oftentimes, he/she is with other officers like the officer in environmental concern or officer in labor, depending on the type of the proposal he handles. Together, they must procure specific survey or proof that the municipality or city really in need of financial attention. All government sectors must keep in their mind that the budget that they handle came from the people or from the community itself and should not be neglected. It’s the people’s prerogative to be serve better by the local government and the taxes should return in a right way.

After the long process of investigation, because it is really need proper documentation and hard study, the local sector will receive the attention that they need.

The effectiveness of the budget is not automatically experienced but with proper budget handling, the corruption will lessen (if not to avoid) and the benefit will be solely experienced by their people.

There are also serious problems regarding this kind of budgetary talks. Sometimes, the officer-in-charge overlooked the municipals truly needed. Like for example: One municipal or local sector requested for the relocation of their municipal hall but on the other side, the community’s problem rises from the other side. There are cases like this that the municipal hall can wait for its reconstruction but the garbage problem cannot wait for a long time. In this case the budget officer has a right to change or redirect the local officers for their true problem.