A New Ethics of the Budgetary Process

• Published date: 01 September 1999
• Author: Jennifer Alexander
• DOI: 10.1177/00953999922019238
• Date: 01 September 1999
• Subject Matter: Articles

ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / September 1999Alexander / A NEW ETHICS OF THE BUDGETARY PROCESS

This article analyzes the ethical codes within public budgeting literatureto demonstrate the

need for a professional ethic that fosters an expandedsense of role responsibility. Drawing

on examples of discretion exhibitedby state and local budgeting administrators, the article

argues that a number of administrative activities fall into a gap of the academic literature.

The article asserts that responsible budgetingdecisions must be tied to an understanding of

how administrative activities affect the collective welfare.Finally, the author argues that a

pedagogy of public budgeting that considers the ways in which institutional forcesand the

long-term public interest inform administrativeaction more adequately prepares budgeting

administrators to understand their roles and responsibilities.

A NEW ETHICS OF

THE BUDGETARY PROCESS

JENNIFER ALEXANDER

Cleveland State University

Consider the following scenario: The finance director of an aging sub-

urb is faced with a dilemma. Downspouts on 70% of the homes are con-

nected to an old sanitary sewer system that often backs up during times of

heavy precipitation, resulting in flooded basements and sewer lines

throughout the community. The finance director recognizes that property

values will not remain competitivewith newer suburbs if the city’s homes

have smelly basements and crumbling foundations. He wants to protect

the viability of the community and the property values, which derive tax

revenues.

The city council and the mayor are aware of the problem, but they dis-

like the idea of raising taxes or drawing “undue” public attention to the

issue. One council member suggests that homeowners who have flooding

assume the cost of correctly connecting the lines (at an average cost of

$1,800). The finance director argues that the city must assume responsi-

bility for resolving the problem because most homeowners will consider

theexpenseofcorrectingtheirsewerlines a financial burden; they will not

addresstheprobleminatimelymanner.The finance director suggests that

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ADMINISTRATION& SOCIETY, Vol.31 No. 4, September 1999 542-565

© 1999 Sage Publications, Inc.

the sewer district build in an assessment fee of $50 that would abate in 10

years and the city could begin the adjustments immediately.

Inthiscase,the financedirectorhaspresentedcityofficialswith a solu-

tion that demonstrated his consideration of the collective welfare of the

community.But had he turned to the budgetingliteratureforcounsel, what

normative guidance would it have offered? Our finance director would

have found two conflicting conceptions of public budgeting,each with its

own distinct ethical code. The first conception, derived from traditional

public administration and the subsequent public management literature,

presents budgeting as a largely technical exercise; it emphasizes neutral

competence, economy, efficiency and accountability (Aronson &

Schwartz, 1996; Herbert, Killough, & Steiss, 1987; Petersen & Strachota,

1991; Steiss, 1989). Within this literature, administrators hold minimal

discretionary power and their professional legitimacy is established by

rigorous analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of various programs.

Politics is relegated to elected officials; it is considered a contravening

force driven by partisan gain or the need to share distributional effects

with constituencies rather than as a means of serving the public good.

A second conception of budgeting emphasizes more recent streams of

literature that have captivated public administration for the past 30 years

emphasize the importance of institutions, individual roles, informal rules,

andbargaininginshaping budgetary action and outcomes. This politically

oriented perspective draws on variousstreams of literature and includes a

budget execution approach discussed by McKinney (1986) and Lynch

(1990) to a focus on utility-maximizing behaviors of the various actors

and, finally, the most overtlypolitical depiction of the budgetary process

popularizedbyWildavsky’s(1964)ThePoliticsof the Budgetary Process.

Unequaled for its documentation of how discretionary action and infor-

mal rules direct the course of budgetary outcomes, Wildavsky’s widely

cited opus presented federal budgeting as a decentralized and often

occluded process where informal power was the necessary currency.

Although The Politics of the BudgetaryProcess has been regarded as the

descriptive theory of budgeting, it is implicitly prescriptive. It presents

budgeting as a utility-maximizing endeavor where the public good is a

natural outcome of actors playing their respective roles well.1

Although these two streams of literature are contrasted rather starkly

for the purpose of comparison, this depiction reveals the conceptual dis-

tinction between budgeting as the prototypical management process and

budgeting as a political instrument. From one perspective, public

Alexander / A NEW ETHICS OF THE BUDGETARY PROCESS 543