Research Paper- Budget Contraints- courseworkhero.co.uk

 

Research Paper: Budget Constraints

 

Background: Fiscal management is one of the most important policy decisions that a top prison administrator must deal with in the course of employment. Fiscal management is a combination of budgeting skills, political acumen, and operational experience and understanding. The fiscal environment is very dynamic and altered by monetary realities, executive branch and legislative branch goals, judicial intervention, stakeholder pressure, operational realities, and operational (health and safety) necessities. The budget calendar is always in play and the prison chief executive’s job often depends on fiscal outcomes. Although at first blush it may appear that there are few options in managing fiscal resources, this is far from the truth. Great administrators are extremely creative and resourceful. They recognize that all options are always in play. With this in mind, this essay is located in Chapter nine of the text, page 259 under “You’re the Correctional Administrator,” question 1. Here is the scenario that Seiter poses:

 

You are the director of a state department of corrections, responsible for operating the state prisons, parole and probation supervision, and a variety of community sanctions that are alternatives to incarceration. Your prison inmate count has increased by 25 percent over the past four years, the prisons are very overcrowded, and you are building new institutions to help with the overcrowding. However, your agency budget increases have not kept up with the demand, and you have a higher inmate to staff ratio, meaning that you have fewer staff available to manage the prisons. Legislative budget committees are asking you to reduce the cost of operation, because they do not want to have a tax increase to fund the increasing corrections budget. How do you develop a proactive plan to reduce the increased budget needs yet still operate all of the state correctional functions in a safe and effective manner? Describe the plan that you would put into place over the next three years.

 

Assignment: This essay must respond to this question, which is also located on page 259 of the text. First, provide a solid, detailed discussion of the issues and challenges associated with this budgetary problem. Such a discussion might include (this is certainly not an exhaustive list) political realities, legal responsibilities, and some recognition of the extent of authority that the director has both from a legal and a practical perspective. Second, discuss the options that appear to be available to you as the prison director. Third, the three year plan should be the conclusion of this essay. You may include a chart that relates to each of the three years of the plan or use subheadings in this particular essay if it will assist you in a summary, but remember that the bulk of the conclusion should be rhetorical in nature. If it will help, consider that when testifying before the legislature when presenting a budget, charts, graphs and statistical reports are always submitted for their review, but it is the individual rhetoric you provide that is critical to your budget efforts. The submitted paper must be a minimum of five pages and must include a plan to insure the budget realities are met for the next three years. Include some in text citations to support your statements, but do not allow the citations to be the bulk of your explanation. In this essay you do not have to meet the minimum of three peer review journals, but if you do use references attempt to limit them to peer review work. This exercise involves the examination of a very practical and real problem you can expect to face at the upper management levels. You may want to keep the following thoughts in mind as you frame a response. Remember to avoid the use of personal pronouns, even though it may appear that this question requires a first person response.

  

there are always many ways to approach this problem. Think outside the box if you have to.

 

consider the role of both the executive and legislative branch in the budget process.

 

the past does not always dictate the future.

 

sometimes solutions demand legislative action and sometimes they do not. Are there any operational steps that might help relief the fiscal crisis?

 

• every management decision at this level can generate new opportunities for an agency.

Leland: I usually want to spend more time on the corrections issues than on the technical aspects of your grammar, spelling, APA format, etc. I have found that when I spend too much time on those topics students seem to lose the focus of the class topic. Remember that these errors count for 10% of the grade. If you need help, I suggest using some of the APA resources I have provided, look at the APA manual or go to the Effective Writing Center. You can always ask a question in the “The Doctor is In” conference or the muster room. I always seem to find spelling and grammar errors that are very simple to catch but very distracting to your writing. I have a conference in the Muster Room on how to reset your spell check, but here it is for you to cut and paste somewhere: ” TO SET YOUR SPELL CHECK TO RECHECK A DOCUMENT: Click on the “Review” tool bar option. You will see “Spelling & Grammar.” Right Click your mouse on that and you will select “Customize Quick Access Toolbar.” In the left column you will see “Proofing.” Select that topic. Now you will see a section “Recheck Document.” Click on “yes.” Then you will get a warning stating that it is going to set spelling and grammar as if it had never been checked. Select “Yes” and that warning then disappears. Now click “OK” on the drop down menu that you have left and the spell check will start as if the document was never checked. This is very simple and I do it every time I check a document, even my own. It is too easy to use a template from another document (such as one with a class title page) and then not recognize that when you get a “spelling check is complete” message, it really hasn’t done the job. It is a holdover from the last document I did. ” Now let me identify the scoring notes that apply to this paper: 3 (this is a mandatory deduction. You had only 2 journals. The last one was a website and websites were prohibited for use. Look at the instructions); 6 (don’t underline “references”);7 (there vs. their, etc.); 8 (do a spell/grammar check); 9 (“we” for example); 10; 20 (as pointed out earlier); Notice that I asked not to refer to TV shows. I think that your reference to movies fits that bill. This is entertainment. If you are going to cite the Director, you need to do a reference for him. This is not good graduate writing though. Stick with studies and facts to support your position and not entertainment and an artist’s interpretation of history, ok? Why are you not capitalizing “S” when you write “U.s.?” Let’s look at the essay construction itself now. There are some important issues I want to emphasize that the spell check won’t pick up. If you don’t indent your paragraphs, that is a serious flaw. I see this more and more as students become well versed in social media but forget the elements of good writing. Indent all paragraphs. I always print out my final essays so I can visually inspect them. Sometimes it is a lot harder to see this when looking at a computer screen. The next point I want to stress is the use of “we” and other personal pronouns in the first paragraph. This is very distracting and the point of an essay is to build an argument (response to the question) and support it with conclusions, facts, etc. You approach this in the very first paragraph in a conversational manner and present nothing at all that draws from research or the class material. This argument was available to you before you ever took the class and it is too subjective in nature. The entire first paragraph has nothing to do with the question. Thus, it is just fill. Next you just start to tell a story going back to biblical times and again, you are not responding to the question. I do not want you to tell me a story. This is not the oral tradition. This is supposed to be a very specific response in a restricted format. I have read the first three pages and you don’t yet have one fact to support a response to the question. That just won’t do. I am looking for research that is quite specific. I want you to address the growth (and this means specific numbers) from 1980 to present. How does the incarceration rate of Russia compared to the U.S. respond to this? You discuss the decrease in the Russian population, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the question. On page 5 you wrote:” Federal Prison Growth, Federal Sentencing Policy, Population Trends Peculiar to Large States, Emerging Release Patterns and Expanded Treatment Options were studied to get to the root of the problem. ” Why are all of those in upper case? You are trying to get to the root of a problem that you have not defined yet and we are almost done with the essay. You move on to an article I can’t locate or reference. Here is what you wrote: ” This final article is actually an essay, which focuses on the authors’ study of various prominent theorists and their take on what should be done to reduce the incidents of inmates reentering the penal system.” You attribute it to someone named Farabee. Where is that in the reference material? Let me summarize by saying that you really need to study the question that is being asked. These essays require thought and research. They cannot be responded to in general terms using subjective or provincial examples instead of research. You did not answer the question here and this writing is not indicative of graduate work. I will not grade it as harshly as I would if we were several weeks into the class but you really do need to do much better on the next essay. Remember to do good research using peer review journals and I would outline the question and keep the requirements located in the project description in front of me when I write the essay.