Promises and Challenges of Racial Equity Budgeting from the Perspective of Generally Accepted Performance Principles (GAPP)

Abstract

Public budgeting scholars and practitioners have developed an approach to formulating and analyzing public expenditures and taxation that has come to be called gender-based budgeting. The case for taking a gender perspective in public budgeting also applies to the explicit consideration of race and ethnicity in addition to gender. However, unlike the case of gender-based budgeting, there does not yet exist a broad conceptual framework for racial equity public budgeting. The purpose of this research is to remedy this gap. The article addresses the following questions: (1) What are the main insights from the development of gender-based budgeting that apply to viewing public budgets with a racial lens? (2) What are the data and administrative requirements of applying a racially-sensitive lens to public budgets? (3) What are the experiences of local governments that have tried to implement various features of racial equity budgeting? We identify several local jurisdictions that are attempting to incorporate racial equity more explicitly into local budgeting. We extract lessons and insights from each of these cases. Particular attention will be given to how adopting a more racially-sensitive lens might lead to changes in budgetary decisions and priorities.