Strategy, Priority-Setting, and Municipal Capital Budget Reform: Three Cases from the Great Recession

Abstract

I examine three cases where local governments, encouraged by the fiscal austerity of the Great Recession, changed how they identified and selected capital projects. The central question is whether these changes institutionalized a more “strategic outlook in the capital improvement planning and budgeting processes for these jurisdictions? The findings suggest that local governments can set capital priorities strategically, but that the process of implementing those reforms must be informal and flexible to changing political circumstances. These findings add to the limited literature on the political, administrative, and other challenges that local governments confront when implementing major reforms to the capital improvement planning and budgeting processes.