Rethink Your Budget Structure: Developing a Program Inventory

The traditional government budget categorizes spending by line items such as “salaries and wages,” “materials and supplies,” or “professional services” and groups spending by department. While these categories can be useful for preparing financial reports or monitoring expenditures, they do not show how the government is using the public’s tax dollars to provide value to the community.

Assigning funding to programs or specific services, instead, promotes meaningful conversations about how best to allocate the government’s limited resources and how changes in service levels will impact desired outcomes. GFOA encourages governments to adopt a program-based approach to budgeting by first developing a program inventory—a comprehensive list of all the programs or services the organization provides.

This session will define key concepts in program budgeting, provide practical tools for starting your program inventory, and offer strategies for introducing this approach in your government, helping you move toward better budgeting and improved budget communications.

Note: Registration for this preconference session is part of the overall conference registration process. Click the link below to begin.