Administrators in higher education feel mounting pressure to link planning and budgeting as resources become more scarce and environments more uncertain. Instead of turning to theoretically prescribed planning/budgeting systems as solutions, microeconomics provides a means of thinking about individual consumption that helps shed light on the…

This chapter of "Principles of School Business Management" analyzes the types of budget preparation that are used in school districts across the United States. The chapter proposes as a basic premise that the budgetary process is inherently political, and states that some budgeting methods may provide more useful political information…