Deck 8: Public Administration: Budgeting and Service Delivery

Question 1

Official activity to cope with sexual harassment in the workplace

A)has been concentrated in the states, where nearly every state has policies designed to deal with the problem.
B)began in the private sector, spread to local government, and then was taken up by individual state agencies in six states.
C)has been ignored at the national level but aggressively dealt with at the state level.
D)has yet to be proved a matter requiring public attention, given its private nature.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The first state to permit collective bargaining for state workers was

A)New York.
B)Wisconsin.
C)Michigan.
D)Minnesota.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

California's Proposition 209

A)resolved the conflict between merit and equity issues.
B)further strengthened the state's strict affirmative action laws.
C)allowed minorities greater preferential treatment than is provided for under federal law.
D)amended the state's constitution to prohibit consideration of race and gender in contracting decisions and in hiring for state and local jobs.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Your text describes bureaucracy as

A)the ultimate problem.
B)a paradox.
C)a necessary evil.
D)a good idea gone bad.

Question 5

The use of a line-item budget permits

A)careful tracking of dollar expenditures and accountability for items purchased with governmental funds.
B)an effective means of measuring performance.
C)flexible decision-making techniques that help attain program results.
D)avoidance of the pitfalls of incrementalism.

Question 6

Each of the following play a role in the budget process for state government except

A)interest groups.
B)the judiciary.
C)the legislative body.
D)the chief executive.

Question 7

The first municipal merit system was established in

A)Albany, New York.
B)Chicago, Illinois.
C)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
D)New York, New York.

Question 8

The capital budgets of state and local governments are intended to

A)provide a means of measuring performance.
B)plan for the costs of expensive items, such as hospitals, school buildings, and other expensive projects, that are not used up during a one-year period.
C)serve as an alternative to zero-based budgeting.
D)account for operating materials that are typically used up during a single year.

Question 9

The basic strategy of the agency or department in the normal budget process is to

A)defend the base amount received the previous year and seek funds for new or expanded programs.
B)act as an economizer by reducing unnecessary items from the budget.
C)build a new budget request from scratch-a process known as zero-based budgeting.
D)organize testimony at budget hearings to pressure the legislature into pursuing favored policies.

Question 10

General-obligation bonds are

A)also known as revenue bonds.
B)paid off with user fees collected from the use of a specific facility, such as a toll road.
C)paid off with the jurisdiction's regular revenues.
D)paid off with special revenues secured through off-budget investments.

Question 11

Affirmative action is a policy that requires

A)"equal employment" opportunities for all federal workers.
B)that the "best person" for the job be hired without regard to race, color, or creed.
C)public and private organizations to provide preferential hiring schemes to make up for past imbalances in the work force.
D)public and private organizations to abolish only overt discriminatory hiring practices.

Question 12

Studies comparing public employees with cohort groups in the private sector

A)found public employees to be less sensitive to other human beings, and less educated than their counterparts in business and industry.
B)found that private-sector employees are more ethical than public employees.
C)found few important differences between the two groups.
D)found that private sector employees are more motivated and competent than employees in the public sector.

Question 13

Budgets are normally based on fiscal years.The fiscal year most commonly used by state and local governments is

A)July 1 through June 30.
B)June 1 through May 31.
C)January 1 through December 31.
D)October 1 through September 30.

Question 14

The federal merit system had its start in the

A)Neutral Competence Act of 1883.
B)Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
C)Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
D)Pendleton Act of 1883.

Question 15

Beginning with the presidency of Andrew Jackson, state and local governments-following the national government's lead-awarded jobs on the basis of

A)the merit principle.
B)veterans' preferences.
C)neutral competence.
D)patronage.

Question 16

Incrementalism describes how budget makers

A)make a comprehensive review of budget requests.
B)make small adjustments in the previous year's allocations, while avoiding a comprehensive review of requested funding.
C)look at the overall budget and make allocations based on the political value of the programs involved.
D)begin anew such that consistency and continuity in the final budget are given little value.

Question 17

Nonnational governments with balanced-budget requirements sometimes meet the letter of the law by relying on

A)hidden expenditures by the chief executive.
B)loans from the federal government.
C)the sale of general-obligation bonds.
D)the use of off-budget items to allow the budget to appear balanced.

Question 18

Use of a performance-type budget by state or local governments

A)ensures accountability on items acquired by those governments.
B)focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of government activities, rather than tracking the cost of items that are purchased.
C)guarantees that the right measures of program performance will be used.
D)is most helpful in government activities that deal with changing human behavior and attitudes.

Question 19

The formal stages of the budgeting cycle include all of the following except

A)audit.
B)formulation.
C)adoption.
D)adjudication.

Question 20

Under federal law, all states are required to establish merit systems for a sizable portion of their workers.Truly comprehensive merit systems are now found in

A)only a few of the states.
B)about one-third of the states.
C)about one-quarter of the states.
D)most of the states.

Question 21

There are more than 19 million state and local government employees, and total payroll costs for those employees exceed $700 billion each year.

Question 22

The use of information technology to simplify and improve interactions between governments and citizens, firms, and other entities is referred to as

A)digital democracy.
B)web-government.
C)e-government.
D)virtual democracy.

Question 23

An audit that examines agency or department activities in relation to goals, objectives, and outcomes is an operational and management audit.

Question 24

In most states, the fiscal year runs between January 1 and December 31.

Question 25

The public budget process is a political process.

Question 26

Formulation of the budget document is the responsibility of the chief executive in most states and localities.

Question 27

The budget process consists of five overlapping stages: preparation, formulation, acceptance, implementation, and audit.

Question 28

Strikes, the legal weapon of last resort in the procedures employed by unions in the private sector, are, for government employees at the state and local level,

A)legal in only twelve states and only for "nonessential" services.
B)legal in all states and commonly used by public employees to get higher wages and better working conditions.
C)legal under the National Labor Relations Act and legal under most public union collective bargaining agreements.
D)illegal in only twelve states.

Question 29

Government employs approximately one of every three working Americans.

Question 30

All of the following factors make government labor relations highly political except

A)the great amount of political clout wielded by public-employee unions.
B)the symbiotic relationship that can develop between unions and elected officials.
C)the unwillingness of public officials to settle labor disputes.
D)the threat by unions of using a strike as a political weapon.

Question 31

All of the following statements regarding privatization are accurate except

A)it is an alternative method for providing public services through private firms.
B)it usually elicits strong opposition from public-employee unions who fear the loss of jobs.
C)it is an alternative method for providing public services that can often lower the cost of government operations.
D)it is a useful approach but valid for only a small segment of government services.

Question 32

Performance budgeting places the emphasis on activities and programs.The idea is to focus attention on how efficiently and effectively work is being done, rather than on the things that are being acquired.

Question 33

The extent of unionization and collective bargaining is greatest in

A)the states of the Midwest and Northeast.
B)Arizona, Mississippi, Utah, Virginia, and the Carolinas.
C)the West Coast states.
D)the South.

Question 34

Bureaucratic discretion

A)is imposed by law via the Ninth Amendment.
B)consists of the ability of public employees to make decisions interpreting law and administrative regulations.
C)is imposed by law via the Tenth Amendment.
D)consists of the willingness of public employees to respond to demands from elected officials, interest groups, the general public, and other policy actors.

Question 35

An international movement to improve government efficiency and effectiveness through market-based solutions is known as

A)reinventing government.
B)new public management.
C)mission-driven government.
D)cooperative management.

Question 36

The administrative branch of government consisting of all executive offices and their workers is called bureaucracy.

Question 37

The line between elected officials' decision making and public administrators' duties in carrying out those decisions in the real world is

A)not clear, because administrators often get into the political aspects of an issue and elected officials often get involved in implementation.
B)often crossed by elected officials, but not by administrators, who tend to accept the limitations on their power.
C)clearly established by law and custom.
D)often crossed by administrators, but not by elected officials, who trust the competence of the administrators to carry out the decisions.

Question 38

Balanced-budget requirements are contained in the constitutions or statutes of forty-eight states and operate through precedent in two states.

Question 39

Collective bargaining in state and local governments is

A)exactly the same process as in the private sector, where supply and demand govern the process.
B)permitted in all states and by most local governments.
C)not as complex as it is in the private sector.
D)complicated by the fact that the results of the negotiations affect the political allocation of public resources.

Question 40

Bureaucratic discretion is built into legislation because

A)it prevents administrators from reacting to pressures exerted by clientele.
B)legislators do not know how to prevent it.
C)it ensures that outcomes of policy will be precisely as intended by the legislation.
D)legislators and chief executives know that bureaucratic expertise is necessary for successful policy implementation.

Question 41

What do you think about the comparison between private-sector and government workers? Are private-sector workers more productive? What does the study included in the text conclude about private-sector versus government employees?

Question 42

Describe the differences between the various types of budgets, such as line-item and performance-based models.What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Question 43

The merit principle holds that individuals with the best qualifications should receive a job, or get promoted, on the basis of their job performance.

Question 44

"Digital democracy" is the term used for the use of information technology to simplify and improve interactions between governments and citizens, firms, and other entities.

Question 45

Strikes and other job actions by public employees are illegal in most jurisdictions, although twelve states permit work stoppages by "nonessential" workers under strictly regulated conditions.

Question 46

The most far-reaching approach to improve government efficiency and effectiveness is based on the book Reinventing Government, and is called new public management.

Question 47

Line-item budgets show not only where the money was spent, but also how effectively the money was spent.

Question 48

Approximately 35 percent of state and 47 percent of local government workers belong to unions, compared with only 8.5 percent of workers in private industry.

Question 49

The Pendleton Act of 1883 established the first merit system in the state of New Jersey.

Question 50

Describe the budgetary process.Is it a political process? Why or why not?

Question 51

A capital budget involves large expenditures for long-term investments, such as buildings or highways.

Question 52

The concept of representative bureaucracy suggests that the employee composition of public agencies should resemble the composition of the general population in terms of the gender, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and other related characteristics of society.

Question 53

The concept of neutral competence holds that employees should perform their duties competently without influence from political pressures.

Question 54

The policy of affirmative action is grounded in the concept of representative bureaucracy.

Question 55

Under affirmative action, the absence of overt discrimination in employment is sufficient; organizations do not need to implement preferential hiring and promotion schemes to redress existing imbalances in the composition of their work force.

Question 56

The concept of privatization has not been very controversial, because using private firms to provide public services guarantees lower operating costs for state and local governments.

Question 57

Surveys of women suggest that sexual harassment in the workplace has been overstated; only about 11 percent of women claim to have been the victims of sexual harassment.

Question 58

In public budgeting, the term incrementalism refers to using the previous year's expenditures as a base for the current year's budget figures.

Question 59

Bureaucrats have little discretion in interpreting law and administrative regulations.

Question 60

In 1979, Minnesota became the first state to adopt a sexual harassment policy.

Question 61

Many practical problems are associated with implementing policies to create a "representative bureaucracy" and to protect merit principles, cope with sexual harassment in the workplace, and deal with the impact of collective bargaining.Discuss the difficulties of implementing a program to achieve a "representative bureaucracy."

Question 62

Why does the governmental budget process inevitably become incremental?

Question 63

Discuss the differences between public-sector and private-sector unions.Why are most public-sector unions not allowed to strike? Do you agree with the rationale for this prohibition?

Question 64

Criticisms of bureaucrats are widespread.To what do you attribute this phenomenon? Is it fully deserved? Should citizens be concerned by it? In your opinion, do bureaucrats serve the public interest? How do you define the public interest?

Question 65

Discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with alternative service-delivery arrangements such as privatization.Do you believe that privatization is a plausible alternative for delivering public services?

Question 66

What are the characteristics of the merit system? Discuss some of the potential threats to the merit system.Do you believe that the merit system should be used in public employment? Are there qualifications (such as affirmative action)that must be included when a merit-based system is used?