Module 10 :
Budget plan set in place by calendar is very important in creating a budget. It helps the officials not to throw in a last minute’s budget that may contains a lot of errors and many inaccuracies and could cost the organization considerably money. For this assignment I am going to compare the budget calendar of Greenlee county in Arizona and the budget calendar of the State of Arizona.
The Greenlee county budget contains a schedule of activities that needed to be performed before the budget could be created and developed . This budget is for the fiscal year 2019- 2020. The budget calendar was found at the third page of the budget with the title “ RESOLUTION FOR THE ADOPTION OF THE FINAL BUDGET FISCAL YEAR 2019-2020”. The budget went through about six steps / process before it was passed. Below are the steps :
- The board of Supervisors made an estimate of the different amount required to meet the public expenditures for the ensuring year on July 3, 2018 in accordance with the provision of Title 42 Chapter 17, article 1-5, Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S) .
- On August 5, 2019 in accordance with the same chapter and title the board met following due public notice to give any taxpayer the privileged to appear and be heard in favor of or against any of the proposed expenditures or tax levies .
- Publication was duly made as required by law of said estimates together with a notice and the Board met again on August 19, 2019 at the office of the Board to hear the taxpayers and made tax levies as a set forth in said estimates.
- Then the sum to be raised by taxation as specified therein , did not in the aggregate amount exceeded that amount as computed in accordance with the same chapter and title.
- Then it was resolved that the said estimates of revenue and expenditures/expenses shown on the accompanying schedules as now increased, reduced to change , are hereby adopted as the final budget of Greenlee County for the Fiscal year 2019-2020.
- The budget was passed and adopted by the Greenlee County Board of Supervisors, on the 5th of August 2019 (co.greenlee.az.us, 2019).
The state of Arizona’s budget Calendar as compared to the Greenlee county’s budget has a different process in creating and developing it . The budget is set for fiscal year. The fiscal year is the 12-month period beginning on July 1 and ending June 30 of the following year. Below are Arizona’s Budget Process :
- State agencies prepare budget request within the guidelines set by the Governor and submit their requests to the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) by September 1 for the following fiscal year.
- OSPB then provides copies of the budget request to the Joint Legislature Budget Committee (JLBC) staff. The Governor’s office and the JLBC staff then reviews budget request in the fall of each year.
- JLBC staff and OSPB along with reviewing the budget also independently produce revenue estimates and the Governor and the Legislature may also use their own estimates for budget development.
- The JLBC in consultation with the Finance Advisory Committee (FAC), which is made up of a 15-member committee of both public and private sector economist which meets publicly 3 times a year in each fall. Also, revenue estimate from the FAC, JLBC staff and 2 university of Arizona econometric models are used to produce a 4-sector “consensus” revenue estimate for the current and upcoming fiscal year.
- The Governor then produce a budget for the upcoming year for the legislature to consider within 5 days after the start of each regular session of the legislature.
- The legislature then conducts a public budget hearing in January and February to discuss the General Appropriation Act which contains the appropriation of general fund and other dedicated funds to state agencies for the upcoming fiscal year and as well as supplemental appropriation and ex-appropriate for the current year.
- Once the budget is approved by both chambers it is then sent to the Governor to either sign and let it go into effect without signing or to veto the bills.
- The General Appropriation Act takes effect immediately, although most appropriation are for the fiscal year that begins the upcoming July 1. The Budget Reconciliation Bills generally take effect 90 days after the end of the session in which they are passed (azleg.gov) .
In conclusion both Greenlee county and Arizona State budget engages the public and taxpayers in developing their budget . Also, both has time frame in planning their budget. However, the Greenlee County Budget was prepared in consultation with only the Board of Supervisors, but the State Budget was planned in consultation with the Governor, OSPB, JLBC and the FAC and 2 State university econometric models.
References
Arizona’s Budget Process- Arizona Legislature (2011). Retrieved from
https://www.azleg.gov/jlbc/budgetprocess.pdf
Greenlee County Budgets (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.co.greenlee.az.us/resources/budgets/
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