Reflections on managing the budget office during rapid downsizing

The budget office should exercise timeliness, coordination, imagination and skill when faced with the task of managing fiscal crises and massive downsizing. The budget office has successfully managed risk, a crucial factor in successful budgeting, if it has met the three goals of dispensing timely information, implementing cross-bureau information sharing and deftly managing trade-offs between the present and the future. This was gleaned from the experience of the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget in New York City, NY, during the Dinkins administration, when tax collections registered a shortfall and revenues dropped drastically.