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Text SizePriority Based Budgeting
Governor Perdue directed a culture change in the state budgeting process so that it's more effective and efficient, results-oriented, and customer-focused. All future budgets will be predicated on programs that support departmental business plans. This is a fundamental change in the way state government does business.
The budgeting now begins with each department prioritizing its programs and reviewing the costs of its services. Departments will no longer concentrate on how agencies are organized and how much money will be needed to maintain the status quo.
Each department must answer four basic questions:
Why are we providing this service?
What are we buying for these services?
Who are we serving?
How much does it cost?
The purpose of the prioritized budgeting process is to bring state spending into alignment with policy priorities. It also eliminates repetition of services, establishes economies of scale, and creates parameters for downsizing state government. The point of priority-based budgeting is not change for the sake of change. The point is to help the state accomplish what the people of Georgia expect of their government – to align spending with the true human needs of Georgia 's citizens.