ABSTRACT
This entry describes the original thought of the framers of the U.S. Constitution over centralized vs. dispersed budgetary authority, as well as practical developments that determined the contemporary place of executive budgeting at the subnational levels of government, in turn. The order of treatment is chronological. The Progressive reform wave in the early twentieth century involved changes in executive fiscal authority initially at the local government level (around 1910). The states have modernized their administrative capacity especially since the 1950s. Budget reform in favor of the executive came in alterations to the governor's ability to prepare and present a budget, as well as in their veto powers to oppose unwanted legislative priorities. Some of the states have chosen to centralize budgetary authority in the executive's hands, while others retained a decentralized budgetary system.
