Budget in Criminal Justice Agencies, Individuals Involved, and Funding Sources
In any criminal justice role, it is beneficial to have an understanding of basic budget components. You may be asked to provide input on a budget related to your work, to retrieve information from a budget, or to create a budget for your department. In this assignment, you explore the basics of budgets, finances, and planning, with special consideration for how these apply to criminal justice agency budgeting. Consider private and public sectors of business, as well as criminal justice agencies, as you research your paper.
Write an 875- to 1,050-word paper in which you do the following:
List the standard items that are included in a budget.
Explain who is involved in the creation of budgets for criminal justice agencies, and what their roles are.
Compare public and private business budget preparation strategies, addressing the following questions:
How are budgets prepared?
What are some funding sources?
Which sector would you prefer to budget for? Explain.
How can you apply business budgeting concepts in the creation of an effective criminal justice agency budget?
Cite a minimum of 2 peer-reviewed sources
Budget Basics
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Budget Basics
Budgeting entails creating a plan on how an organization will spend its money. In particular, a budget is a financial plan showing revenues and expenses in a specific period. All organizations, including the criminal justice agencies, require budgets to operate effectively. Creating a budget is the only way a company can plan its resources well to ensure that it meets its set objectives. Excellent examples of criminal justice agencies are the police departments, judicial system, and correctional facilities. All these institutions require a budget for the proper management of their money. The paper focuses on how budgets are created for criminal justice agencies, individuals involved in this process, and funding sources.
Standard Items Included in a Budget
A budget should show the revenues generated by a company and how these funds are to be used. The standard items of a budget include maintenance, office stationeries, running costs, such as water and electricity bills, medical supplies, and food supplies. Others are the purchase of vehicles, rent, traveling expenses, fueling company vehicles, employees’ salaries, meeting expenses, subscriptions, entertainment, vehicle insurance, and parking fees (Aragao & Fontana, 2022). In criminal justice agencies, such as correctional facilities, all the above things must be well-planned for in a budget. However, there is no fixed number of items that are supposed to be in a budget, but it depends on the needs of an organization. For example, a correctional facility should budget for inmates’ clothing and other necessities, which might not be budgeted for when it comes to the court.
How Budgets Are Created For Criminal Justice Agencies and the Roles of Those Involved
The budgeting process should include all relevant stakeholders. Specifically, the budget becomes less criticized if the level of involvement of appropriate individuals or parties is high (Sponem & Lambert, 2016). Budgets for criminal justice agencies involve various steps to promote their effectiveness. These stages are: assessing the organization’s financial resources, identifying expenses, setting goals, creating a feasible plan based on the available resources, subdividing resources as indicated, and tracking the progress. Besides, a criminal justice agency cannot plan for resources that are not available. For instance, a correctional facility should identify the number of prisoners it can hold by ensuring that all these people get the things they need during their stay. As such, budgeting is crucial since it shows how available resources will be distributed to meet the established objectives without a company straining.
Since a budget refers to a systematic plan that shows where the funds will come from and how it will be spent, relevant stakeholders should be included. All departments in a criminal justice agency should provide their revenues and expenses to the budgeting team. In most cases, creating budgets includes accountants, business analysts, managers, executive leaders, and auditors. Executive leaders and managers ensure that revenues and expenses are not overstated. Accountants and auditors draft the budget based on the needs of an organization. Business analysts ensure that budgeting rules are followed and that new things are included. Many budgeting stakeholders can be included depending on the organization and the funding sources. For instance, a state correctional facility must include some state officials during budgeting.
Public Business Budget Preparation Strategies
How are budgets prepared?
Public business budgeting includes government stakeholders. The budget preparation aims at prioritizing resources that the government provides. In that light,...