ABSTRACT
On 30 June 1993 at the Denver School board's meeting to ratify their 1993-94 budget, one of the board members explained why she would not vote for the ratification of this budget. Her statement was, "The budget does not follow the mission statement." "What does she mean by that?" many would ask. The answer is grounded in a concept of ethics and the budgetary process. From an ethical perspective, the issue of integrity surfaces. Integrity is considered in the context of the correlation of budgeting decisions and the mission. This chapter offers an analytical model for evaluating the integrity of various entities as a function of correlations between an entity's budget and its mission. It presents a model for analysis and assesses the integrity of a nonprofit entity. The results of the analysis are used to identify the level of integrity as measured by inconsistencies between the official mission of an organization and its budgetary activity.
