Fiscal Health for Local Governments
Fiscal Health for Local Governments

Author: Beth Walter Honadle

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2003-12-18

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0080472788

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Fiscal Health for Local Governments offers a how-to approach to identifying and solving financial problems. Its principal selling point lies in its assumptions: instead of using the vocabulary and research agendas of economist, finance scholars, and political scientists, it will appeal to readers who lack sophisticated knowledge in these areas and nevertheless need practical advice. The book stems from the Fiscal Health Education Program, an applied economics program at the University of Minnesota. It uses three measures of fiscal health — financial condition, trend analysis, and financial trend monitoring system — as the basis for advocating particular fiscal strategies. The book examines the tools that can be used to assess the condition of a local government's fiscal health and some of the policy causes or remedies for certain situations, as well as some of the strategies governments can pursue to maintain and improve health. It will serve as a primer for readers interested in understanding financial processes and alternatives, and as a practical guide for those who need access to fiscal measurement tools. How-to approach will appeal to readers who lack sophisticated knowledge Contains discussion questions and anonymous case studies of actual cities and municipalities Presents practical methods for identifying and solving common fiscal problems

Handbook of Local Government Fiscal Health
Handbook of Local Government Fiscal Health

Author: Helisse Levine

Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 0763792306

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Fiscal health of local governments and municipalities has remained an important issue since the crises of the 1970s in places like New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland. More recently, the bankruptcy of Orange County California raised the possibility of a different type of financial failure than earlier ones. The beginning of the 21st century has witnessed two major economic bubbles including the dotcom and housing bubbles. These economic cycles combined with increasing health care, pension and other structural costs continue to challenge the fiscal viability of many jurisdictions. In particular, the economic and financial crisis of 2007-2008 is likely to result in potentially serious fiscal challenges for local jurisdictions.

Financing State and Local Governments
Financing State and Local Governments

Author: J. Richard Aronson

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780815716273

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State and local governments are at a financial crossroads. As the federal government attempts to reduce its deficits, state governments will have to provide a greater share of support for mandatory social programs. Local governments face demands for new initiatives in education and for civic improvements. Both have obligations to employee pension plans that are large and still relatively untested. Running counter to these claims on state and local budgets is a voter effort to limit the amounts that governments may tax or spend. This fourth edition of James A. Maxwell's classic and widely acclaimed book will help both layman and lawmaker understand the choices open to their governments. It provides a lucid, nontechnical analysis of state and local finance. It gives concise descriptions of the taxes, grants, debt issues, and user charges that finance state and local government and discusses their relative virtues and drawbacks. It traces the history of state and local finance and presents statistical data on expenditures, federal aid, revenue from taxes and user charges, debt, and pension funds. The new edition, in recognition of changes since the mid-1970s, also includes a separate chapter on financing education and broadened analyses of federal grant programs, employee retirement systems, and nonguaranteed municipal debt.