ABSTRACT
Citizens expect their governments to do needed activities but within fiscal constraints.1 Financial management seeks to carry out this fiscal imperative. The private economy generates the wealth that elected representatives of the public extract in part to provide for public goods and services. Public law prescribes the form of this taxation, the method of getting other forms, and the handling of these resources once they are in the custody of the public treasury. Further, the budgeting process offers a structured means for gaining a modicum of political consensus on how to address goals for the upcoming fiscal period. Civic results, therefore, hinge on the jurisdiction’s financial management. Managing local finance requires more than the accounting of funds, however. Chief financial officers (CFOs) have to do a fiscal balancing act within the local body politic, requiring strategic integration of budgeting, accounting, and financial management in pursuit of the public good.
