How Rural Local Governments Budget: The Alternatives to Executive Preparation

The centralized, executive budget is widely viewed as the predominant form of local government budgeting in the United States. But what is the practice in smaller, rural governments which lack strong chief executives? This article describes the annual budgeting processes and roles in such locales, based on case studies of eight municipalities and four counties in California and Illinois. Budgeting in these jurisdictions is characterized by multiple roles in budget preparation, a key individual who serves as coordinator and compiler of budget requests, and overlap of legislative and administrative responsibilities. In some rural localities the budget is used as a policy tool for priority setting, but in others the budget process is performed only to fulfill legal requirements. Factors such as the personal interests of local elected officials, local tradition, and the strength of legislative involvement affect the influence administrators have on budget policy.