Journal Reflections for Modual 3.1 - Planning and Budgeting in the Public Sector

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing specific questions provided by the CPM course instructor Larry Dzieza for module 3.1.]

1. Identify what you think are the two big strategic and budgetary issues facing your organization.  (Possible opportunity to do a SWOT analysis).

First, our existing ordinance is outdated and essentially irrelevant.  Without an enforceable ordinance, we lack a basis for identifying our services, authority, or funding ability.

Without this formal authority it is difficult to tie budgets to levels of service.  Therefore we tend to be stuck in getting the baseline appropriation from the previous year in each subsequent year.

Second and tangentially related, our accounting system uses budget codes that have no relevance to the services we provide.

When combining these two issues, we have no clear picture of what we should be providing and have no meaningful information about where we spend that money or how effectively we spend that money.

Discussion Topic #4 - Deconstructing the Obviously Rediculous

Within the recently completed course on budget management we were presented with a comical video that has stuck in my head. Perhaps discussing it will help me not dwell on it so much.

It presented a middle aged, middle manager making a ridiculous argument against public parks.

If I recall correctly the actor was white, overweight, balding, and in a non-descript brown suit. He was complaining that since the new city manager arrived, the city had been getting all these government grants for parks and recreation projects.

This was a terrible thing since it meant he had to do more work actually building parks or implementing recreational programs. This devolved into a rant about how any parks were a bad thing since the government shouldn't be in the parks business at all. His preferred approach was to privatize parks like the "Chucky Cheese" model.

At the end of the video, we all agreed this video made a great point about how necessary government services were and how ridiculous the chucky cheese model was. The instructor even asked for any discussion on the subject and no one replied. Potentially since to advocate on behalf of the managers position would seem ridiculous and to advocate against it was unnecessary.

I've thought about it since then, and have some of the following observations that I would love to hear further discussion on. I will try to note them with minimal editorial opinion so as to not accidently place myself in the defense of the ridiculous manager.  After all anyone who could even slightly agree with the loser manager, must be one himself.


But a little deconstruction and discussion would be fun.