Incorporating Social Equity

Abstract

Despite that budgeting is the quintessential administrative decision and that budgetary allocations signify which public priorities matter, it remains undertaught in the context of social equity. This is problematic because public administrators are culpable in creating, maintaining, perpetuating, and extending inequities against numerous historically marginalized populations and that public funds are often allocated to programs that result in social inequities. We argue that budgeting has the potential to help foster social equity, and as more governments expect their employees to be competent in social equity, including budgetary officers, it is incumbent upon Master of Public Administration programs to ensure all students understand budgeting's social equity dimensions as well as techniques to promote equity in and through budgeting processes. This chapter reviews the social equity dimensions in budgeting and suggests learning outcomes, assignments, and techniques to incorporate social equity perspectives into a public budgeting and finance class.

Keywords: public budgeting, social equity, equity budgeting, teaching, public finance