REVENUES AND EXPENSES
Being a bit of a numbers geek, it has been fascinating for me to learn more in school about how governments manage their money. I’m lucky: my parents instilled fiscal discipline in me at a young age, and I got to learn about for-profit finances at one of the premier business schools in the world. Even so, it’s still a challenge to “get” how money flows in and out of various types of institutions.
At work, for example, we consult businesses on how to grow their sales and rein in their costs, while we ourselves struggle with bringing in contractual and grant income to match our personnel and program costs. As an elder at church, we’re wrestling with how to balance our budget, given the combination of dwindling revenues (because of declining membership) and rising costs (because people, utilities, and everything else just costs more). Amy and I are figuring out how our personal finances will work, given our work status and student tuitions and upcoming adoption.
Governments, of course, tax and spend, and I’ve enjoyed learning how that works. It turns out that a lot of what I’ve learned in the past – whether from my dad or my accounting professor or my boss at work – can be applied to public finance. Municipalities float bonds, create budgets, and pick at costs, just like in other sectors. In fact, the whole exciting thing about getting into government administration is putting for-profit principles into play on behalf of cities and city residents. By doing so, I believe, we can make government better and provide a better tax and service mix for urban dwellers.
God made different people to look at the world in different ways. For some, it is a struggle between good and evil. For others, it’s about relationships. Me, it’s the decisions and systems that make up money coming in and money going out, and what kind of landscape that creates for people and families. Having seen it in my personal life, in businesses, and in the non-profit world, I am now learning how it works in the public sector.
Being a bit of a numbers geek, it has been fascinating for me to learn more in school about how governments manage their money. I’m lucky: my parents instilled fiscal discipline in me at a young age, and I got to learn about for-profit finances at one of the premier business schools in the world. Even so, it’s still a challenge to “get” how money flows in and out of various types of institutions.
At work, for example, we consult businesses on how to grow their sales and rein in their costs, while we ourselves struggle with bringing in contractual and grant income to match our personnel and program costs. As an elder at church, we’re wrestling with how to balance our budget, given the combination of dwindling revenues (because of declining membership) and rising costs (because people, utilities, and everything else just costs more). Amy and I are figuring out how our personal finances will work, given our work status and student tuitions and upcoming adoption.
Governments, of course, tax and spend, and I’ve enjoyed learning how that works. It turns out that a lot of what I’ve learned in the past – whether from my dad or my accounting professor or my boss at work – can be applied to public finance. Municipalities float bonds, create budgets, and pick at costs, just like in other sectors. In fact, the whole exciting thing about getting into government administration is putting for-profit principles into play on behalf of cities and city residents. By doing so, I believe, we can make government better and provide a better tax and service mix for urban dwellers.
God made different people to look at the world in different ways. For some, it is a struggle between good and evil. For others, it’s about relationships. Me, it’s the decisions and systems that make up money coming in and money going out, and what kind of landscape that creates for people and families. Having seen it in my personal life, in businesses, and in the non-profit world, I am now learning how it works in the public sector.
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