A Sketch of Sustainable Development: Which Units of US City Budgets Focus on Sustainability?
Advisor Information
John Bartle
Location
Milo Bail Student Center Omaha Room
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
8-3-2013 10:45 AM
End Date
8-3-2013 11:00 AM
Abstract
Sustainability is a frequently cited word by local government leaders but one without meaning absent a context. In spite of the ambiguity, there is a lack of research on the current adoption of sustainability as a budget concept and how the concept is utilized as a performance indicator. Therefore, this research aims to identify the way that Chief Budget Officers, such as mayors or city managers identifies the concept of sustainable development. In addition, this study invests which units of the city government focus on sustainability and have performance indicators for sustainable development. This study employs a content analysis of the latest budget reports of 41 cities, which are receiving the Distinguished Budget Award from GFOA in 2009 (the most complete listing available) among the cities whose population is over 300,000. At first, I analyzed the budget letter of major city governments in the US, and checked how many times the letters mentions sustainability to measure how important they deal with the sustainable development issues in their budget. In addition, I research the performance indicators in their budget and analyze which unit of government focus sustainable development.
A Sketch of Sustainable Development: Which Units of US City Budgets Focus on Sustainability?
Milo Bail Student Center Omaha Room
Sustainability is a frequently cited word by local government leaders but one without meaning absent a context. In spite of the ambiguity, there is a lack of research on the current adoption of sustainability as a budget concept and how the concept is utilized as a performance indicator. Therefore, this research aims to identify the way that Chief Budget Officers, such as mayors or city managers identifies the concept of sustainable development. In addition, this study invests which units of the city government focus on sustainability and have performance indicators for sustainable development. This study employs a content analysis of the latest budget reports of 41 cities, which are receiving the Distinguished Budget Award from GFOA in 2009 (the most complete listing available) among the cities whose population is over 300,000. At first, I analyzed the budget letter of major city governments in the US, and checked how many times the letters mentions sustainability to measure how important they deal with the sustainable development issues in their budget. In addition, I research the performance indicators in their budget and analyze which unit of government focus sustainable development.