For your final paper, you are to select a local government budget to utilize for a comprehensive paper that will review that city's budget in the context of the materials and concepts that have been discussed in this course. Specifically, your paper will want to address any and/or all of the following:
1. Revenue - Sources of income; amounts/percent derived from different sources of income; revenue in dollars and/or percent compared to previous years; revenue forecasts for future years; other issues concerning revenue.
2. Expenditures - Nature of expenditures; comparison of expenditures vs. revenue for current year/previous years/future years; allocation of revenue for operational vs. capital expenditures; other issues concerning expenditures.
3. Administration - Methods of collection of revenue; oversight of expenditures; structure of government; planning efforts (strategic, capital, etc); type of budget used; other issues concerning administration.
4. Context - Efforts concerning transparency, progressive or regressive taxation, budgeting as an economic development tool, revenue and expenditures versus other nearby local governments, accountability efforts.
The local government budget that you select must have the following characteristics:
- Must be current (Fiscal Year 2018, Fiscal Year 2019 or Fiscal Year 2020)
- Must be local - no state budgets permitted
- Must have electronic access to the entire budget in MS Word or PDF format
- Must contain enough information to address the points listed above