Reengineering capital budgeting

This article illustrates the application of business process reengineering (BPR) to capital budget process redesign. The case of the City of Pittsburgh is used to argue that capital budgeting processes in many large cities often pose barriers to effective financial management. Design principles of BPR are presented; implications for capital budget management are then discussed. Pittsburgh’s capital expenditure/encumbrance process is used to illustrate implications of BPR for public financial management. By identifying shortcomings in current maps, ‘future’ maps can be constructed that rely on organizational redesign and technology to eliminate steps that do not add value.