Green: The Police Manager, 7th Edition

Case Studies

Chapter 13: Fiscal Management

You are the finance officer in a police department located in a small town. Your department’s budget is set by the city council. The council has been working on a line-item type budget, which projects costs over the fiscal year according to object class.

You work directly and continuously with the chief to manage the current budget and project the budget for the new year. You know that in law enforcement, there are a lot of things that cannot be anticipated, so you try to build in a small percentage of the budget for unforeseen occurrences. Your largest budget item is salary and expenses, followed by fuel and maintenance of vehicles. A rise in gasoline prices has eaten up the majority of your reserve.

Through good management on your part, you make it to the end of the fiscal year with a small surplus. It is policy that the city council takes back any unspent money at the end of the year, often giving it to departments that did not manage their funds well, and have run out. You also know that good fiscal managers have a tendency to create “wish lists” that contain items that are not necessary to the department, but are items the department would like to have. The intent behind the “wish lists” is that, rather than returning money to the city, the department would rather buy additional items so the budget for the department is not reduced next year.

Being the good fiscal manager that you are, you have problems with this system.

Questions

1. What would you do?
   Your Answer

   Correct Answer

   Propose to the chief that the city allow “left over” funds to be converted to “any year” funds that can be carried over to the next fiscal year.
   

2. Do you think that you are a responsible public manager when you engage in casual last-minute spending of funds?
   Your Answer

   Correct Answer

   Unless the funds are spent for items that are truly needed, this is a waste of money.

   Because many agencies either run “low” or run “out” of funds toward the end of the fiscal year, you know a better use would be to “bank” this money for a time when an unexpected need hits your agency.
   

3. Are there any discretionary funds that you can access? The nature of law enforcement makes budgets hard to create and stay with. For example, Hurricane Katrina shut down a number of oil wells and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. The result was a decrease in supply for fuel and an increase in cost.

   Your Answer

   Correct Answer

   Perhaps you can encourage the chief to go in front of the town council and explain the problem, as well as the consequences if nothing is done.

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