Article review on administration

Willoughby, W. (1918). The movement for Budgetary Reform in the States. New York: D. Appleton and Company for the Institute for Government Research.
Thesis: The article discuss about the budget laws which are adopted by several states. The author expresses that budget is the essential tool of public administration. With the provision of comparative study the author also provided some criticisms of the main aspects of budgetary laws of the states. It is being emphasized in the article that an executive budget could not work successfully until the government of state becomes too much reorganized that it’s various managerial services and associations groups in to departments based on their personality.

“ Budget is the crucial responsibility tool”

“ Unless the public is familiar regarding the how the legislative issues are being performed in the earlier period, it is not obligatory to figure out that admired will cannot be prudently formed nor articulated”
“ Those governments regardless of their virtues that fail to present sufficient budget systems would neither achieve the maximum of efficiency nor would prove to be in general accountable to the people”

The article is useful for public officials, students and every person who is directly associated with the budget laws.

Key, V. (1940). The lack of a Budgetary Theory, American Political Science Review, 34
Thesis: Key discovered the fundamental questions regarding budgeting as “ The decision shall be taken on what basis to allot x dollars to activity A rather than activity B?” Although long years of budgetary exploration and advancement, the question still remains unanswerable. Key identified that the answer to this problem would establish an all-out government theory.
“ The accomplished budgetary document signifies a decision upon how limited means should be distributed to bring the highest return in public utility”
“ If it is presumed that an agency is functioning at greatest efficiency, the question remains that whether the function needs to be carried out or it should be carried out on a condensed or increased scale”
“ As the proportion of national income is used up for public reasons, the area of the price structure gets more limited”
This article of Key is useful reminder that budgeting is far more than just a system. The message is forgotten instantly when the newest development comes in market and assures a clear procedure for separating the budget pie.
Schick, A. (1966). The Road to PPB: The Stages of Budget Reform. Washington, DC: Blackwell Publishing
Thesis: Allen Schick identified three functions in this article which exists in the procedure of budgeting: control, management and planning. Allen thought that each budgeting procedure accentuates one of these functions. He also argued that each budgetary procedure must be clearly planned to assure the existence of and appropriate priority for all of these functions.
“ In the ideal shape, PPB would concentrate on the function of planning, and hand over main managerial and control duties to the management and operating levels correspondingly”

“ All the budget methods, even the ones that are the fundamentals, contains processes of planning, management and control”

“ PPB’s main objective is to transform the yearly practice of organizing a budget into a conscious appraisal and invention of future aims and rules”
The article is valuable because it discusses about the interrelationships among fiduciary control, management and planning. The article emphasizes on the budgetary development in United States and discusses about the three important stages evolved in this development.
Wildavsky, A. (1969). Rescuing Policy Analysis from PPBS. Washington, DC: Blackwell Publishing
Thesis: The article discusses about the primary loss and failures of PPBS as executed in the federal system and also their causes. Wildavsky states that policy analysis could be everything which the agencies require. He emphasized on the importance of policy analysis and urged that the change would come gradually. He also suggested schools to add policy analysis as a course to their curriculum and lessons of policy analysis should be given to some agency people.

“ Policy analysis focuses at presenting information which makes contributions for building an agency socially and politically appropriate”

“ One way to enhance the funding of policy analysis would be to craft the training of people better who perform directly in the different parts of policy”

“ In various organizations it is not sometimes possible to conclude whether the simplest goals have been achieved”

The article examines the allegations of Wildavsky and presents an update and compares the viewpoints where necessary in order to explain the reader of current attitude about the system.
Levine, C. (1978). Organizational Decline and Cutback Management. Washington, DC: Blackwell Publishing
Thesis: The author in this article identified and figured out that U. S and the management and agencies which served it were entering into the phase of stagnation and turning down in growth. Through this article Levine described four types of organizational decline. Once a cause is being identified he advised different strategies to control the cutbacks in order to be most efficient and effective.

“ Government associations are neither everlasting nor unchangeable”

“ The world of the future is tentative, but insufficiency and accommodation appears certain”
“ Like growth, organizational decline and death is a type of organizational change either by corrosion or plan”
Levine tried to help the managers in facing the truth of what was in front of them and predicted the country’s future in this view. This article would help in making a manager or any person confident in planning strategies as well as considering the choices which they might need to deal with.
Caiden, N. (1981). Public Budgeting Amidst Uncertainty and Stability. Public Budgeting and Finance, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Thesis: Caiden discusses about the requirement of budget reform and presents some knowledgeable assumption as to why reforming budget might be difficult. The reform proposals were being discussed in the article and the dissimilarities among them as well as their advantages and disadvantages.
“ The budgets tends to be more complex, hard to manage and less predictable when the situation turns to be increasingly tentative and more rigorous”

“ The chore of public budgeting has turns out to be much more complex, complicated and worrying”

“ Processes of budgeting may be said to flourish on stability”
She further concluded in the article that reform would not create wealth to act with or inevitably make the economic period better, but it would give a wide knowledge of what to do with the limited resources.
Rubin, I. (2002). Perennial Budget Reform Proposals: Budget Staff versus Elected Officials. Public Budgeting and Finance, 22(4), 1-16
Thesis: The article describes the budget reform perennials as those which returns number of times at the national level while having little chance of passage and little change regarding iteration. The article discusses the origins of proposals which do not pass and the ways which could possibly be implemented to reduce the pressure they cause. The research is on the basis of qualitative interviews and governmental statement.
“ When a crisis takes place at the national level, legislators with knowledge at the state level initiate the solution of state level. It may be twentieth time for the budget staff and first time for legislators, the budget staffers are required to react to the solution”
“ Proposals may be linked, customized to create the utmost political support and may possibly be voted on numerous times, getting support every time until concluding passage”
“ When the reform proposals of budget do not surpass but die a standard governmental death, these proposals drop off the agenda”

References

Caiden, N. (1981). Public Budgeting Amidst Uncertainty and Stability. Public Budgeting and Finance, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Key, V. (1940). The lack of a Budgetary Theory, American Political Science Review, 34
Levine, C. (1978). Organizational Decline and Cutback Management. Washington, DC: Blackwell Publishing
Rubin, I. (2002). Perennial Budget Reform Proposals: Budget Staff versus Elected Officials. Public Budgeting and Finance, 22(4), 1-16
Schick, A. (1966). The Road to PPB: The Stages of Budget Reform. Washington, DC: Blackwell Publishing
Wildavsky, A. (1969). Rescuing Policy Analysis from PPBS. Washington, DC: Blackwell Publishing
Willoughby, W. (1918). The movement for Budgetary Reform in the States. New York: D. Appleton and Company for the Institute for Government Research.