Agency Strategies and Determinants of Agency Success under Redirection in Georgia

• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X9903100103
• Author: James W. Douglas
• Date: 01 December 1999
• Published date: 01 December 1999
• Subject Matter: General Interest

31Winter 1999

State an d Local Government Review

Vol. 31, No. 1 (Winter 1999): 31-42

THIS ARTICLE examine s the impact

of a budgeting reform in Georgia,

known as redir ect ion , on agency

strategies, and uncovers the factors most im-

portant in determining agency success under

this reform. The redirection reform intro-

duces conditions that can yield both positive

and negative results for agencies. The reform

also limits agency acquisitiveness, an im-

portant strategy in the budgetary process.

Understanding how agencies respond to and

are affected by redirection-like conditions

—

conditions under which agency behavior has

not been examined previously

—

enhances our

knowledge of agency behavior.

Methodology

The data used for this article come from a

series of elite interviews conducted with key

budget actors. Agency budget officials, the

director of the Office of Planning and Bud-

get (OPB), and OPB budget analysts were in-

terviewed. Budget officials from 29 of Geor-

gia’s 30 agencies (96.7 percent) agreed to be

interviewed. Of the 19 OPB analysts respon-

sible for advising and reviewing the budgets

of thes e agencies, all agreed to be interviewed.

Budget data from the Governor’s Budget Re-

port, FY 1992–98, was a lso us ed for part of

the analysis.

Agency Strategies and Determinants of

Agency Success under Redirection in Georgia

James W. Douglas

The interview format consisted of open-

ended questions designed to produce non-

structured responses; agency officers and

OPB analysts were asked similar but distinct

questio ns. Detailed notes were prepared af-

ter each session. Electronic recording devices

were not employed for fear that their pres-

ence would inhibit interviewees’ responses to

politically sensitive questions. Confidential-

ity was pledged to each of the budget offi-

cials; officials were told that quotes from

interview notes would be used but not attrib-

uted to an individual or agency by name. To

avoi d the problem of cross-reporting, I con-

ducted all of the interviews myself between

December 1996 and March 1997. Interviews

were 25–90 minutes in duration; the average

interview lasted 53 minutes.

Agency Strategies: The Literature

Observing the budgetary process, scholars

have identified patterns of agency behavior.

Many scholars have found that, during times

of revenue growth, agencies seek to expand

their budgets by asking and lobby ing for in-

creases over the previous year’s budget (Anton

1967; Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky 1974;

LeLoup 1984). Ira Sharkansky (1968) and

other scholars (Bozeman 1977; LeLoup and