My hometown is asking voters to approve a sales tax increase of 1.25% in November 2020. I know they need the money, but it is certainly a...

I started in local government when Planning, Programming, Budgeting (PPB) was introduced as a way to more effectively and efficiently use...

As most of you are neck deep in your budget, we thought we would share some budgetary pitfalls that we have experienced over the years....

We have written much in the past about the need to identify and cost out your infrastructure, partly to insure that the adequate...

Last November I wrote the above titled topic about municipal asset replacement programs for the RCS monthly newsletter, and here is an...

“There will not be any corresponding reduction in service.” I have a close friend that I met during our University Public Administration...

Given the renewed interest in contracting as a way to save money, it seems like a good time to review the experience of agencies that...

Does your agency have a Revenue Book and someone assigned as Revenue Czar? The Revenue Czar is charged with knowing everything there is...

A recent report by the California Statewide Needs Assessment Project, a coalition of local government groups, identified more than $82...

In October of 2009, I wrote an article about what Firefighters could teach Police Officers. Thanks to an article in the Los Angeles Times...

There has been much talk lately in budgeting circles about Budgeting for Outcomes. In short, this means making an effort to determine an...

I’m at heart a “budget” guy. In the four cities I worked in as an employee (full disclosure, it was over 25 years ago) I was always...

We are living in a time of change. Redevelopment Agencies in their current form have disappeared. No one knows what the State budget will...

Let’s jump into the “wayback machine” and travel back to 1975 when I was a 23 year old Administrative Analyst (i.e. “punk”) with a fresh...

Many years ago, I audited a city in the San Gabriel Valley area of greater Los Angeles that was especially well-managed. One of the...

If you use a Cost Allocation Plan (CAP) to recover General Fund costs from your Enterprise Funds, then it’s time to start thinking about...

As you probably know, the City of Costa Mesa has pink-slipped nearly half of its employees. Considering that as of yet none of those...

When our company started doing cost of services studies in the early 1980’s, it was routinely suggested that 50% of animal control costs...

In these days of budget angst and woe you may be getting pressure from your elected officials or community to outsource services that are...

I’m writing this on March 18, 2011, or seven days after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan followed by a four meter tsunami that...