Team-based budgeting: a case study of Fauquier County, Virginia.

• Author: Carter, Alex

The budget results achieved through interdisciplinary teamwork in Fauquier County are grounded in objective and defensible evaluation criteria.

To many people who have the responsibility of developing a budget for their organization, the thought of the annual budget process dredges up emotions sometimes bordering on dread, fear, anger, anxiety, and trepidation. And perhaps these feelings are justified given the often haphazard, subjective, and exhausting process of formulating local government budgets. This article will consider problems of local government budgeting practices and opportunities for positive change in the process. It will focus specifically on the steps that the budget office of Fauquier County, Virginia, took during the fiscal year (FY) 1998 budget process to increase the participation of line staff and to improve the quality of budget recommendations to the county administrator.

Fauquier County, with a population of 50,000, is located approximately 40 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. Primarily agricultural, the county is experiencing significant growth as a suburban community on the fringe of the metropolitan Washington area. Meeting this growth with a limited tax base is presenting challenges to Fauquier County.

The annual budget process in the county had problems: the most egregious flaws were the lack of communication and objectivity. The budget office developed budget guidelines, instructions, and forms with little or no input from individual departments, and the only opportunity for feedback on the process was during the first kick-off meeting or soon thereafter. Changes in budgeting policy were not communicated regularly and thoroughly to appropriate departments, often resulting in several misinformed and unhappy department heads. As there were no objective criteria by which budget requests would be measured, oftentimes what appeared to be justifiable projects went unfunded, while marginal or special interest projects would get the budgeting "green light."

Team-based Budgeting

In order to create respect and confidence in the budget process, county officials needed to improve communication and objectivity. Team-based budgeting, which is defined as using a group of individuals below the senior management level to work together in reviewing and recommending one or more major elements of the budget development process, seemed worth a try.

Two factors influenced the development of collaborative budgeting. The first was...