The Role of Budget Planning and Personnel as Staff Services

Abstract

pants of the same administrative boat. This juxtaposition may result in much rocking and a capsized craft, especially in the case of the commonly accepted paradox of public administration that personnel management, budgeting, administrative planning, purchasing, accounting, statistics, etc., are all activities, yet can be placed organizationally and functionally in such a position that they act as a control on operations, semi-independent of the executive. Control is frequently exercised from the vantage point of an independent administrative commission or agency such as a civil service commission, or an auditor's office actually engaged in maintaining accounts. At other times and in the larger governmental operations it is exercised by grouping all or a large portion of the above activities together into single, major organizational divisions with such catch-all titles as department, bureau, or division of administration and by placing them in a segregated box, always toward the top, though modestly to one side, of an organization chart. This treatment of the so-called staff services has tended to create a convenient outlet for graduates of professional schools. Career steps are clearly outlined. Also, after becoming practitioners these former students are fortified to meet vicissitudes by