The “Clinic” Style
The following document describes the final project assignment. Think about the critical issues facing our budgeting and financial systems in the public sector, and decide the one that you will study further. This project is expected to be completed with passion for public service, prudence for problem identification, and excellent analyses to suggest a path to solutions.
One key point is that the problem that you identify should be rather focused and clearly identified. One way to do that is to focus your study on a department/city/county/state/organization. The other way is to delineate the problem. We should use data to show a problem, and then analyze the environment in which budgeting takes place to suggest, based on our study of this issue, a few things in the hope to improve fiscal discipline.
Possible topics include and of course not limited to:
•What is the status of fiscal health of City X (County Y) during the past 10 years? Is fiscal health really at the mercy of economic cycles?
•How does City A conduct performance informed budgeting? What are the challenges?
•How does the debt level evolve in the jurisdiction where you live? Do debt management practices matter?
•What is the impact of government fiscal difficulties on your non-profit organization?
The final project will be evaluated based on:
1. Whether the problem is clearly identified and stated? The problem must be relevant to this course. In other words, it relates to the budget/finances in the public sector.
2. Whether the proposed solution(s) are relevant and reasonable in a way that showcases your research efforts?
3. Whether the project uses financial/budgetary information to support problem identification and proposed solutions mentioned above?