The Effective Public Manager: Achieving Success in Government Organizations, 5th Edition

CHAPTER NINE

MASTERING THE BUDGETARY PROCESS

The performance management policies and trends that require public managers to track, assess, and report on program processes and outcomes have had a significant impact on the field of public budgeting (Bianchi and Rivenbank, 2012; Frank, 2007). Not only are public servants accountable for ensuring that they protect society and the environment and provide innumerable public services, but they also must deliver services efficiently and without wasting precious taxpayer dollars. Measuring an organization's work processes, outputs, and outcomes is almost meaningless unless you can relate that information to the money spent on those processes and outcomes.

An even more fundamental reason that managers ...