Search results

In this introductory essay, the authors describe a new public finance characterized by enduring revenue constraints; mounting budgetary claims from accruing liabilities for post-retirement benefits for government employees, rising health care costs, and an aging population; and uncertainty about future budgetary demands and resource limitations. The new public finance is described as a convergence of economic and demographic forces with past practices that increased the fiscal vulnerability of states and local governments. The authors explain that states and local governments will not overcome challenges by relying upon traditional ways of thinking about and conducting business but instead must revamp frameworks for practice. Symposium papers are described as tackling several of the most pressing issues facing governments today with an eye towards rethinking customary approaches.

This article reviews and analyzes the goals and approaches espoused in the George W. Bush administration’s proposed Strengthening America’s Communities Initiative (SACI). Drawing on a variety of materials describing the rationale, purpose, assumptions, goals, and components of the newest policy approach to community and economic development, this paper tries to critically examine the initiative using a capacity-building framework and some of the historical antecedents of Federal grant programs for community development - including some defunct programs - to inform current discussion about the proposal. Two conclusions of this analysis are that this proposal has much more in common with previous administrations’ proposals for development over the last several decades than its advocates are suggesting and that this policy, like most, is a study in paradoxes and compromises.

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.