Thomas Dexter Lynch

Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

Public Administration Quarterly
Local Government Budget Strategy: A Case Study of South Florida.
Thomas D. Lynch
Florida International University.
INTRODUCTION

There are enormous pressures on local government finance. A Brief review of events in the early to mid-1980s shows that local government faced decreasing federal aid, increasing taxpayer resistance to taxes, declining (or static) state-shared revenues and high rates on municipal securities. During the same time, the lower-income strata of the population faced reduced federal assistance, growth areas required new or expanded public services while the existing infrastructures (e.g., roads, sewers, water systems, public buildings) required enormous repair and replacement bills. Given these conditions and others, what type of budget strategy is most likely to receive positive reactions from the public?

The author examined the local budgets and financial reports of governmental entities in Broward and Dade countries, Florida in order to assess the financial capability of those governments to deal with local needs. These findings, plus some simple political logic, served as a basis for answering the local question. Thus, this article first reports on the outlines a budget strategy which, in the author’s view, should have the greatest possibility of achieving popular success in the existing political environment.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION QUARTERLY
Twenty-First Century Budget Reform: Performance. Entrepreneurial, and Competitive Budgeting.
Thomas D. Lynch
Cynthia E. Lynch
Louisiana State University.
ABSTRACT

This article looks at the possible public budgeting evolution that will take place as a result of the changes brought into place by the information revolution. The authors argue that a fundamental historical change. They first examine progressive reform movement and the forms of public budgeting so common in government today, they then look at the futurist literature to describe the remarkable changes brought to society due to the information age. From that literature the authors argue that a new form of budgeting is starting to emerge. If they are correct, the we are entering into a new era with important implications for public budgeting. Although many positive results may occur with these new budget reforms, there are some negative realities that might also provide serious headaches for tomorrow’s leadership. The authors conclude by examining those implications.

INTRODUCTION

This article speculates on the likely budget reforms that will be successful in the next century and the problems that will be associated with those reforms. The first part of the article presents the last major set of budget reforms that flowed out of the Progressive and Liberal Eras and its impact on how budgeting is predominantly done today. The second part discusses some negative implications of this new type of budget reform. The article concludes with a few observations.

PUBLIC SECTOR PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
Thomas D. Lynch
Susan E. Day
Florida Atlantic University
INTRODUCTION

How do you know what have you received for you money? The private sector has a general term to answer that question–widgets. What are widgets in the public sector? The public sector focuses on the financial resources used to produce our products and services rather than the products and services produced. Political processes determine input decisions and elaborate budgeting and financial management techniques are employed to ensure accountability.

What about monitoring and consequences of our public programs, the products and services produced by our government agencies, and the day-to-day activities within our bureaucracies? To the extent that our government tracks the answers to these questions, we do so with performance measures. They are the widgets of the public sector. As Epstein (1988:3) points out, “[T] he simplest way to think of this topic is by analogy to the private sector: performance measurement is government’s way of determining whether [or not] it is providing a quality product product at a reasonable cost.”

This article reviews the evolution of the governmental performance measure concept and comments on its contemporary development in four sections: history, state of the art, theoretical considerations, and conclusions. The history section traces the evolution of government performance measures. The section on the state of the art reviews current applications measurement systems at the international, national, and state and local levels . The theoretical section discusses the change in conceptual assumptions concerning performance measurement. The last section suggest the implications of the current developments in this movement is the terms of contemporary and future public administration.