Reference no: EM133212713 , Length: word count:600

Public Budgeting and Finance

Learning outcome 1: Evaluate an existing budget and justify its recommendations.

Learning outcome: Review the grant management cycle.

You are preparing for a challenging City Council meeting. You need to be able to give the other council members and the mayor an accurate state of affairs to make sure significant cuts can be made in the appropriate areas, and other critical areas can continue to be funded. Select an agency or a program from your local city to analyze the financial plan to respond to the following questions in a 4-5 page paper:

1. Evaluate a budget or financial plan of your local city agency or program. Title this section Financial Plan.

2. Propose one issue for improvement for the budget or financial plan of the agency or program. Title this section Improvement.

3. Develop a budget proposal for the improvement issue. Title this section Budget Proposal.
o Justify your recommendations.

4. Distinguish the similarities and differences between the federal, the state, and the local budget submission process. Title this section Federal, State, and Local Submission Process.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
• Include a short introduction that addresses background information of the agency or program information and use the questions as section headers.
• Please include at least four references; at least two references must be peer-reviewed.
• Include the URL of the location of your city's financial plan and any other documentation you used for your budget analysis.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the professor's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
• This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course.

1. Review the Grant Management Cycle

Your grant application is nearly done! There's just one more piece you'll need to complete for the application process to be complete.
In addition to laying out the all of the goals and objectives, you'll need to show the funders how you plan to measure whether or not those goals and objectives are being met. This is all part of the grant management that will take place after you receive a grant.
Your job now is to determine how you will evaluate the success of the program. You will need to create a document that considers the following questions:
1. What questions will the organization's evaluation activities seek to answer?
2. What are the evaluation plans and time frames?
o What kinds of data will be collected?
o At what points?
o Using what strategies or instruments?
o Using what comparison group or baseline, if any?
3. If the intention is to study a sample of participants, how will this sample be selected?
4. What procedures will be used to determine whether the program was implemented as planned?
5. Who will conduct the evaluation?
6. Who will receive the results?
7. How does this program or project define success?
Create a 2-3 page document that answers each of the questions at a high level. This document should be written in such a way that it can be shared across the Resource Center as well as with volunteers and partners in the program so they can understand how the program will be evaluated throughout the grant cycle. While you want the information to be clear and specific, it's not necessary to go into great detail. It should be easily understood by all.