Essay Sample on a Municipal Budget

Many nations have had urbanization increasing at a very significant rate. This is a worldwide phenomenon. The consistent race for economic growth has brought about challenges in basic amenities such as water, sanitation, road networks and wastewater management for many households (Carrol, 2009). Municipal governments are subjected to the task of ensuring that these concerns are meted through the financial resources that are put at their exposure.

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According to Slack (2009), Municipal finances are those that are channeled into the local governments in the form of revenues with an intention of achieving desirable effects. The researcher further alleges that the demand for pragmatic comprehension has fueled the decentralization and fiscal pressures which have also, in turn, led to the transfer of responsibilities from the federal sent to the local governments who in this paper will be referred to as the municipal governments. They have been infused with adequate resources aimed at controlling expenditures, strengthening revenues and tap external funds that will help them achieve creditworthiness.

The main purpose of the local governments is to play the important roles of ensuring that public services are decentralized and locals can access the total national spending (Chapman et al., 2012). In most nations, total federal expenditures take place in subnational levels which in this case are referred to as municipals (Chapman et al., 2012). Many problems have therefore arisen in the course of management of these resource allocations. Many municipalities face a major problem of unprofessionalism from the municipal staff who lack the project design and implemented a strategy on how to use the portion of resources allocated to them.

Hypothesis

Municipal growth is not just affected by the presence of finances.

Statement of the problem and research questions

There have been many cases of misappropriation of local government funds by the management in various municipal regions in nations across the globe. The media has managed to reflect the instances where municipal governments have been unable to give an exact account of the finances they manage. Such issues prompted the research of this paper. With the continued rate of decentralization in many nations some of the questions that this paper seeks to answer include:

1. How are municipal finances managed?
2. What is the job of municipal finances?
3. Where do Municipal get their finances from?

Research problem

Municipal governments undergo several problems concerning finances. Either the funds are insufficient, or the money does not do what was expected of it. In that way, the locals who need to get services done to them fail to receive amenities such as water and roads due to a deficit of funds. In most cases, the manager tasked with the control of the funds either are corrupt or are uneducated in matters of financial management.

Ethical Issues and

The first issue is privacy. The participants' information has to be protected by all means. There should not be sharing with the third party. The participants might fear that their personal information mat be issued out to other interested parties. However, they will be assured that the data will only be used for academic purposes. Secondly, autonomy is a key element in this research. The meaning of the research and everything it concerns will be explicated to the respondents and allowed to participate voluntarily. The last one is justice and fairness. Here, everyone in the research, despite their status, is supposed to be treated equally with their colleagues. The researcher will ensure that no bias will occur and it will be achieved through randomization techniques.

Literature review

Slack (2009), examine the municipal governance and finance in various nations and at a broader aspect of addressing the challenges experienced during urbanization and service delivery. This is part of the governance to ensure that there is transparency, accountability, and participation in ensuring that the management of the finances is up to date (Slack, 2009). According to the researcher, when there isn't an existence of an effective municipal financial system, the essentiality may be flawed. There has to be a consistent strong revenue flow that should make it absolutely possible to build sustainable towns and cities.

Municipal authorities which are implicated with these tasks need to have themselves embroidered with sufficient resources that will enable them to impact urbanization (Lackey, 2015). The researcher alleges that the unlikeliness to this will generally lead to the mushrooming of negative effects of livelihoods of the citizens. The residents' quality of life will also be part of the problems that will be experienced in the long run (Lackey, 2015). This, therefore, means that there is a great need to ensure that there is an improvement of sustainable municipal government finances across the globe (Lackey, 2015). Poor financial systems can lead to faulty local service delivery and inconsistencies, thus damaging future developments visions.

If municipal finances fall short of expectations, what are the methods that can be followed to ensure that there is a sustainable municipal financial flow?

The main principles that govern municipal financial systems are the benefit principle (Fourie et al., 2015). This is an idea that has been put forward by public finance theorists who believe that an equitable taxation system where the taxpayer contributes within the mutual benefit from the public services is what matters most (Fourie et al., 2015). This is one unique approach that is set to aid in the development of a close-knit relationship between generated tax revenue and the finances spent in the delivery of the goods and services.

The emphasis of municipal finances has been advocated by theorists who believe that greater freedoms have to be allowed to the local governments so that they can be let to work within their area (Chapman et al., 2012). The main purpose of the study of municipal finance and administration is to obtain the conceptuality and theoretic account that will appreciate clean audit outcomes. This is in relation to the problems that many municipalities face in trying to deliver equitable resources to the locals. Municipalities can therefore not deliver services without sufficient finances (Chapman et al., 2012). They have to generate the money by raising taxes, levies rates and service charges from the rates obtained within the jurisdictions of their municipalities.

A municipal budget should be able to suit the needs arising in the community in terms of needs and the structural municipal financial background that has to focus on the operational and capital budget, income and expenditure (Fisher 2015). Once the cornerstones of accountability are not meted, it is without a doubt that serious risks will be posted that will bring about municipal distress. This study, therefore, intends to appreciate the crucial need of these municipalities in ensuring that legislative needs are met to ensure that there is sound management of the finances, control of budget and efficient monitoring and reporting. This is because the boundaries of municipal finances lie within the rubric of revenue and expenditure decisions made by the municipal governments (Carrol, 2009). No municipal has the ability to deliver services to its people without an appropriate budgetary process that confers with sufficient money to pay for the operational costs.

References

Carroll, D. A. (2009). Diversifying municipal government revenue structures: Fiscal illusion or instability?. Public Budgeting & Finance, 29(1), 27-48.

Chapman, J., & Gorina, E. (2012). Effects of the form of government and property tax limits on local finance in the context of revenue and expenditure simultaneity. Public Budgeting & Finance, 32(4), 19-45.

Fisher, R. C. (2015). State and local public finance. Routledge.

Fourie, M. L., Opperman, L., Scott, D., & Kumar, K. (2015). Municipal finance and accounting. Van Schaik Publishers.

Slack, N. E. (2009). Guide to municipal finance. UN-HABITAT.

Larkey, P. D. (2015). Evaluating public programs: The impact of general revenue sharing on municipal government. Princeton University Press.