Many professionals working within higher education are substantially under-prepared to work with a budget. A budget, in a practical sense, is a living artifact of a control and planning system, built on organizational structures. A budget is a financial representation of the institution’s values and priorities and serves as a guide for an organization, identifying how funds will be used. Decentralized or participatory budgeting refers to using a decentralized approach to drafting a budget, incorporating all levels of management in the planning process. All budgets involve organizational politics; they are a representation of negotiated exchanges and a shifting of priorities. The budget process and model selected is an important opportunity for an organization; the model selected will strongly influence the status quo and culture around budgeting. Budgets typically start with last year’s figures and begin their estimation points from there, unless a zero-based approach is used.