Budgeting for sustainability.

• Author: Kinney, Anne Spray
• Position: From the editor

Local governments must deliver services and address community needs regardless of the economic forecast. Using budgeting for outcomes (BFO), a locality can equip itself to meet its most important goals, come rain or shine. The BFO approach was described by Peter Hutchinson and David Osborne in their book, The Price of Government. Jurisdictions can use BFO to identify their most important strategic priorities and make sure resources are allocated accordingly This issue of Government Finance Review showcases ways the approach can be used.

In Anatomy of a Priority-Based Budget Process, authors Shayne C. Kavanagh, Jon Johnson, and Chris Fabian present the essential steps in a outcomes-driven budget process, explaining how it can be customized to local conditions.

The City of Savannah, Georgia, determined that it needed a long-term structural approach to matching expenditures to revenues. In Budgeting for Outcomes in Savannah, Eva Elmer and Christopher Morrill detail how the city identified what was important and what it would take to get there.

Sunnyvale's Tool for Surviving Fiscal Challenges, by Mary J. Bradley and Drew Corbett, explain how the City of Sunnyvale, California, uses long-term planning to identify fiscal challenges early on and deal with them strategically

Short-term fixes might help stabilize...