Case Study

Case Study

Case 1: Budgeting Case

The Town of Maxwell has traditionally experienced rather stable development for a very long period of time. The budget for Maxwell is made by a three member Budget Committee of the Town Selectmen. The primary task over here is to devise a budgetary procedure for the Maxwell town budget. The main area of concern at this point in time is the growing population and limited resources out of which we have to craft out our budget. The best possible solution for the town could be a participatory budget system.

The participatory budget system is a set of activities through which demands are gradually defining sectoral priorities of the community, where the criteria for allocation of funds and the investment program of the City by involving people. It involves in making people a diagnosis of their needs, quantify, develop their demands, choose the priority and to follow up the implementation of such actions is vital, on the one hand, there are mechanisms to ensure information flow between government and society and on the other, to be placed on the discussion table issues such as urban planning, public transport, health, education and culture. In this sense, the participatory budget matters with the traditional breaking of the budget that defines it as merely technical that can only be addressed by professionals, moving to consider as essentially political in which each and every one of us are involved.

If this budgetary process is implanted in the town of Maxwell, then its application would overcome many of the problems that come with the concentration of power, resource waste and corruption. The Participatory Budget, as a solution for the problems being faced by the town of Maxwell. Would eventually reduce clientelistic practices, encourage participation, favor a fairer distribution of income and would result in a better quality of representation.

Case 2: Planning Case

The State of Gardner has been grappling with education reform for some time. It has seen 38% of its students fail standardized tests. It has been criticized by educational professionals for failure to commit resources needed to make improvements. The State, in reaction, adopted The Education Quality Act, which can be seen below.

The requirement that all students must pass a standardized qualifies examination in order to move from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, and to graduate from high school.

The creation of 10 charter schools that will be non-unionized and come under the state Board of Education --- not local Boards---with 50% of the funding coming from the State.

The amount of school time will increase. Cities and towns can choose to either (1) extend the school day or (2) add more school days (less vacation time and/or extension of school year into the summer).

State educational aid monies to cities and towns will be based upon student passage rate on standardized tests.

Schools systems that fail to produce a standardize test passage rate of 80% by the year 2014 will be de-certified and placed in state receivership.

Before starting off with anything, we will identify our key goals and objective, ...