These basic principles of discounting and compounding are the building blocks of most financial analysis. Not only are they used in capital-budgeting decision making, but as will be seen in later sections, they are critical for cost-benefit analysis, debt administration, fund investment, and tax policy. An understanding of the time-value concept is essential to become fully functional in government finance.
In Capital Budgeting
As is always the case with mechanisms to assist in making public decisions, there are problems in applying capital budgeting. First, the capital-improvement/capital-budget process presumes a continuous cycle of reappraisal and revaluation of project proposals. The cycle is necessary because the world changes, causing substantial changes in the value of public projects. Unfortunately, many processes regard established priorities to be unchangeable, even in the face of different project costs and different project demands. As Howard points out, “Too often cost fluctuations do not generate a reassessment of priority rankings; original rakings are retained despite the fluctuations.” In a related manner, the time a project has spent in the priority queue sometimes establishes its priority rank; all old project proposals have higher rankings than any new ones. That approach makes no sense because time alone does not improve the viability of a marginal project. Indeed, items entering the priority queue some years before may have outlived their usefulness or may have been superseded by adjustments made by people and markets by the time they reach the funding point. Again, the problem can be resolved by maintaining reviews of projects in the capital-improvement program.
Second, there can be questions about what projects or programs belong in the capital budget because, in the strictest sense, more than capital assets provide future benefit flows. Planning and zoning department, educational institutions, training programs, and so on, all provide benefits that extend beyond the year in which the service expenditure is made. Most generally, however, these activities would properly be excluded from the capital budget because spending for them is recurrent, not single-year. Further, most processes will establish dollar-size limits for capital-budget treatment: a $1,000 personal computer, with a useful life of eight years, would be part of the operating budget, whereas and $8,500 automobile, with a useful life of four years, would be in the capital budget, dollar limits will differ, but some limit will usually be encountered. Such arbitrary rules are a common factor in any decision process.
Third, availability of funds can distort the priority ranks. As Howard observes, “Despite the fact that how a project is financed does not change the need for it, there is a strong tendency for differences in the availability of capital outlay funds to skew priority decision.” The appropriate approach in establishing final priorities should involve a general comparison of the cost of the project with the project’s return to the community – the money’s source doesn’t matter in that comparison. Some projects can get favored treatment, however, because earmarked funds are available (a special tax creates a fund pool that can be spent only on one class of project), because they produce revenue that can be pledged to repayment of revenue bonds without direct-tax burden or the need to satisfy restrictions placed on general debt, or because federal or state assistance is available for particular projects. The purpose of many grants is to bend local priorities, so that influence is excusable. The other influences, however, are inappropriate and show why most analysis oppose such fiscal constraints.
Fourth, capital budgeting can bias toward acquisition of items by borrowing. Borrowing may not always be desirable, as with items that are acquired on a regular-flow basis. Furthermore, during inflation the bias can add to macroeconomic pressure if state and local governments all operate in about the same fashion. Thoughtful fiscal analysis, however, should prevent that bias – if political pressure can be withstood.
Finally, there is a standard problem in all public decisions: establishing priorities. How do item get into the capital budget? Cost – benefit analysis. To be examined next, gives some assistance, but as with operating programs, there are no unambiguous answers.
COST – BENEFIT ANLYSIS
Because society cannot afford to waste its scarce resources, judging whether a particular program is worth its cost is a constant problem in public-program choice. Cost – benefit analysis provides a way of organizing information about a program under consideration so that priorities may be reasonably established. A private firm considers a major project (say, the purchase of a new delivery truck to replace an older, smaller one) and compares the anticipated increase in revenue from the new truck with the anticipated increase in costs. If the revenue exceeds cost, the purchase of the truck is a wise use of the firm’s scarce resources; if not, the purchase is unwise.
Cost – benefit analysis is the government analog to that process: Governments can and have used it for assistance in making decisions as diverse as purchasing word processing equipment , modernizing vehicle fleets, developing water resources, developing communicate disease – control programs, and developing a supersonic transport plane. It has also been used to evaluate the worth of numerous government regulations. For capital – budget purposes, however, cost – benefit analysis is similar to decision – making processes used by private firms: The analysis estimates whether the gain to society (benefit) from the project is greater than the social sacrifice (cost) required to produce the project. If so, the project