Historical Perspective on Performance Budgeting: Performance Budgeting in the United States before 1960

Authors

Dan Williams, CUNY Bernard M Baruch CollegeFollow

Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

With the assistance of A. E. Buck, Herbert Hoover coined the term Performance Budget in 1949 to rebrand cost data budgeting. Cost data budgeting originated in 1912 in Richmond County (Staten Island), New York. It is strongly associated with the National Commission on Municipal Standards and the Committee on Uniform Street Sanitation Records, which are both direct derivatives of Clarence Ridley’s original work in making sense of performance measurement under the title Means of Measuring Municipal Government, his 1927 dissertation at Syracuse University. Ridley subsequently led the International City Managers Association for nearly 30 years. He teamed with A. E. Buck, Donald Stone and Gustave Moe to perform the work of these two task forces. Buck later wrote the Hoover Commission report in which the term “Performance Budget” is coined. Buck also brought his knowledge of cost data budgeting first to Ridley’s task forces and later to the first Hoover Commission. By the end of the 1950s, performance budgeting was eclipsed by program budgeting. The examination of productivity emerged as a separate activity. This is a story both of development and drift and provides at least one important lesson for the present: the link to performance is about inputs as well as outcomes. Keywords:

Comments

This Work paper was never published. It reflects development at several conference papers.