The Ethics of Public Service (Physiology of Public Organizations)

Co-optation:  Situations in which citizens are given the feeling of involvement while exercising little real power.

Deontology:  Belief that broad principles of rightness and wrongness can be established and are not dependent on particular circumstances.

Ethical (or moral) relativism:  Belief that moral judgment can be made only by taking into account the context in which actions occurs.

Ethics:  Process by which we clarify right and wrong and act on what we take to be right.

Ethics audit:  Evaluation of the value premises that guide action within an organization.

Morality:  Practices and activities considered right or wrong and the value those practices reflect.

Neutral competence:  The belief that a neutral public bureaucracy following the mandates of legislative body will meet the requirements of democracy.

Objective responsibility:  Assurance of responsiveness through external controls.

Subjective responsibility:  Assurance of responsiveness based on an individual’s character.

Utilitarianism:  Philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Accounting:  The process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information to permit informed judgment and decision-making.

Allotments:  Amounts that agencies are authorized to spend within a given period.

Apportionment:  The process by which funds are allocated to agencies for specific portions of the year.

Appropriation:  Legislative action that permits establishment or continuation of a particular program or agency.

Bond:  Promise to repay a certain amount (principal) at a certain time (maturity date) at a particular rate of interest.

Budget padding:  Proposing a higher budget than is actually needed.

Business cycle:  Periods of economic growth featuring inflation and high employment followed by periods of recession or depression and unemployment.

Capital budget:  A budget depicting spending for items that will be used over a periods of several years.

Capital investment program:  A timetable indicating various projects to be undertaken, schedules for their completion, and methods of financing.

Continuing resolution:  Resolution permitting the government to continue operating until an appropriation measure is passed.

Debt capacity:  Value of a city’s resources combined with the ability of the government to draw on them to provide payment.

Deferral:  Decision by the president to withhold expenditure of funds for a brief period.

Discretionary spending:  That portion of the budget still open to changes by the president and Congress.

Entitlement programs:  Programs that provide a specified set of benefits to those who meet certain eligibility requirements.

Excise tax:  Tax applied to the sale of specific commodities.

Fiduciary funds:  Funds used when government must hold assets for individuals or when government holds resources to be transmitted to another organization.

Fiscal policy:  Public policy concerned with the impact of government taxation and spending on the economy.

Fiscal year (FY):  Government’s basic accounting period.

General fund:  Fund that handles the “unrestricted” funds of the government.

Gross National Product (GNP):  Measure of total spending in the economy; includes total personal consumption, private investment, and government purchases.

Impoundment:  Withholding of funds authorized and appropriated by law.

Item veto: Allows the executive to veto specific items in an appropriations bill.

Linen-item budget:  Budget format for listing categories of expenditures along with amounts allocated to each.

Outcome-based budgeting: Budgeting system that takes into account long-term effects or outcomes.

Performance auditing:  Analysis and evaluation of the effective performance of agencies in carrying out their objectives.

Performance budget:  Budget format organized around programs or activities, including various performance measurements that indicate the relationship between work actually done and its cost.

Planning-programming-budgeting system (PPBS):  Effort to connect planning system analysis, and budgeting in a single exercise.

Prelude:  Review in advance of an actual expenditure.

Progressive tax:  One that taxes those with higher incomes at a higher rate.

Proportional tax:  One that taxes everyone at the same rate.

Proprietary funds:  Used to account for government activities that more closely resemble private business.

Reconciliation bill:  Legislative action that attempts to reconcile individual actions in taxes, authorizations, or appropriations with the totals.

Regressive tax:  One that taxes those with lower incomes at a proportionally higher rate than those with higher incomes.

Rescission:  Decision by chief executive to permanently withhold funds.

Risk management:  Ways that public organizations anticipate and cope with risks.

Supplemental appropriation:  Bill passed during the fiscal year adding new money to an agency’s budget for the same fiscal year.