Essential Skills for Public Budgeting and Financial Management

This study provides an update on the major topics covered in the required, core public budgeting and financial management courses offered by NASPAA accredited programs in the U.S. and explores how NASPAA competencies are addressed in these courses. Based on a survey of 39 NASPAA accredited programs and a content analysis of 60 course syllabi, this study finds that public budgeting and financial management courses still focus on budgeting, which has not changed since the 1980s. In addition, with no curricular guidelines to benchmark the public budgeting and financial management curriculum, programs are left to interpret and assess NASPAA competencies in their courses and there is a significant variation in how they are assessed. The study concludes with a call for more research on budgeting and financial management education.