PROVIDING MORALE, WELFARE, AND RECREATION FUNDS AS INCENTIVES TO SAVE - ENDING THE END OF YEAR SPENDING FRENZY
Abstract
Each year as the end of the fiscal year approaches, US Air Force commanders (as well as thousands of other government managers) wastefully and inefficiently spend their authorized budget appropriations down as close to zero as they can get. The purpose of this paper is to determine what changes the Air Force should make to its budget execution system that will reduce wasteful spending and encourage a culture of saving. It uses a problem/solution methodology, using the research question as the qualitative measure of which alternative is most suitable. The key findings are that Congress controls spending, and that budget execution law and practice force an urgency to spend every September. The research centered on finding alternatives to the current budget execution system that are being used by other government agencies that could be applied to the Air Force in order to answer the research question. Retained savings programs and carryover funds are the most promising methods. The papers key recommendation is that Congress should pass legislation creating a retained savings incentive, by which 50 percent of budget savings should be returned to the unit in the form of Morale, Welfare, and Recreation funding the following fiscal year. This solution aligns the objective of saving with the inducement of a group reward.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 25, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1040914
Entities
People
- Paul F. Weiss
Organizations
- Air Command and Staff College