Identify and discuss at least two of goals, strategies, and tactics used by organizations in order to maximize budgeting and expenditures?
Typically, organizations seek to increase their budgeting and expenditures whenever they look to grow beyond existing limitations in some way or another. Growth requires additional spending and resources from the budget. Expenditures are typically associated with two strategies: the growth strategy and the technological advancement strategy. A growth strategy involves increasing the productive capabilities of an organization. It requires increasing storage and production spaces, hiring additional workers, and performing other activities to increase the scale of an enterprise (McKinney, 2015).
Technological advancement strategy, on the other hand, does not necessarily mean increasing the scale of production but rather improving its quality by providing new technology. This, in turn, would enable the organization to offer advanced services (McKinney, 2015). Either of these strategies can be used to justify increased budget expenses.
Discuss how financial management and budgeting concepts are applicable to public administrative organizations and the programs that are offered. Choose one organization to serve as an example for this essay
Financial management and budgeting are not foreign concepts for public administrative organizations. Historically, government agencies were funded from treasuries and budgets, which were comprised of tax money and revenues generated by governments through various means. The amount of resources available to any individual organization is finite, which calls for financial management and budgeting activities. However, there are differences between budgeting in for-profit business organizations and public administration organizations. The functions of budgeting in these organizations are as follows (Shafritz, Russell, & Borick, 2013):
- Prioritization and allocation of available financial resources.
- Achieving policy goals in the most prudent and efficient manner.
- Providing accountability in regards to the spending of taxpayers’ money.
- Ensuring compliance and increasing efficiency through financial means.
The local post office can be used as an example of a public administrative organization. Its purpose is to receive mail, send mail, and offer various administrative services to customers. All of these activities require financial and material resources. The financial management process would involve calculating expenses, estimating future expenses, managing income, and, in case the existing servicing capacities are not enough to support the influx of customers or are not up to the existing standards, increase budget spending in order to expand or upgrade the organization.
In your opinion, why do you feel Baby-Boomers are having an influence on political leaders to reform social security now rather than later? Provide examples supporting your response
Baby boomers are a massive generation born shortly after the Second World War. Born between 1946 and 1964, this generation is comprised of more than 74 million people in the US alone, according to the National Census Bureau (Leider, Coronado, Beck, & Harper, 2018). United together by shared views on many aspects of politics, governing, religion, and family, this generation represents a powerful political force that all major political players are trying to cater to in order to win their votes. As it stands, the passions of baby boomers revolve around social security, and for a good reason.
The youngest members of the baby boomer generation turned 54 in 2018, while the majority of them are well over 60 years of age. Old people are increasingly reliant on various social security institutions, such as healthcare services, social workers, and various other institutions aimed to help the elderly and the disadvantaged with various life challenges. As such, they are interested in supporting the social sector, increased taxes, and endorsing various policies that make their lives easier and cheaper (Leider et al., 2018).
Baby boomers exert political power just by existing, and here are some examples of it. The US healthcare sector has been predicting tremendous growth in healthcare demand ever since the early 2000s, which resulted in the adoption of various programs meant to benefit Baby boomers, such as Medicare. When Trump came to power, his initial promises of cutting the program were significantly reduced in order to cater to the large baby boomer demographic. In other words, Baby boomers will be a prominent political force for the next decade at the very least, which would promulgate the expansion of the social sector.
References
Leider, J. P., Coronado, F., Beck, A. J., & Harper, E. (2018). Reconciling supply and demand for state and local public health staff in an era of retiring baby boomers. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 54(3), 334-340.
McKinney, J. B. (2015). Effective financial management in public and non-profit organizations (4th ed.). Oxford, UK: Praeger.
Shafritz, J. M., Russell, E. W., & Borick, C. P. (2013). Introducing public administration. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.