Federal user fees and entrepreneurial budgeting

An increasing number of federal programs in the USA have the authority to charge fees. This article examines the extent to which fee budgeting systems may be considered ‘entrepreneurial’, by comparing a sample of federal fee programs with the entrepreneurial budgeting model suggested by Cothran. The analysis of four fee programs suggests that they have greater discretion over program spending than in the past, combined with various means of central control and generally high levels of accountability to Congress, service users, and citizens. This suggests that they are becoming somewhat more entrepreneurial, which has ramifications for future management and budgeting of these programs.