Introduction
The concept of stewardship is old specifically in the domain of leadership and development. Public stewardship demands professionals to perform their duties with the highest standards of honesty and personal integrity. The role of stewardship in public budgeting has been discussed least. In this paper, the need and importance of public stewardship in budgeting has been discussed. For proper public stewardship, ethical requirements for leaders have been discussed, and consequences of unethical public stewardship have been mentioned.
The need and importance of public stewardship in budgeting
Public budgeting is an important task that includes the allocation of resources, management of economic and social affairs and strategies for the attainment of macro-control. Budgeting is the mirror of the government policies as it analyzes the direction of state activities. For realizing the economic and social justice, strengthening the supervision of public budget is amongst the major ways (Liu, 191). Stewardship ensures - through transparency and strict supervision - that public professionals produce an efficient utilizations of resources in hunt of state objectives and goals (Lewis, 50).
The budget prepared by the public organizations is based on public needs. It has been realized that habitually the needs of public exceed their paying ability that reflects as the budget deficit. In 2015, South Africans were paying more taxes on their earnings; the aim was reducing the budget deficit, which shows the poor public stewardship in the past (South Africa Information News). Therefore, stewardship is the need for motivating public officials in enhancing their efficiency in reducing budget expenses and therefore, budget deficits (Lewis, 50). The preparation of budget includes the costs of the projects that the organization is intended to complete for the public interest. It includes the cost of procurement. The example of unethical stewardship is the case of the supervisor in Miami; the supervisor agreed to take house appliance, which was worth of $13,000 in exchange of utilizing his effect in ensuring that the department procures the lightning products of suppliers. The case was the illustration of poor stewardship as the budgetary money was not being used ethically and the official was involved in unethical behavior (Russell).
Organizations with the mean of preparing an excellent public budget and preventing public officials and staff members from corruption employ different methods to train them. The methods of training include workshop and seminars, conference and lectures, case studies, interactive methods, sensible tailored made methods, and internet based training (OECD, 19-20). Ethical requirements for leaders to consider for proper public stewardship
Proper public stewardship is pivotal for preparing efficient and result oriented budgeting. Stewardship refers to the ethic that includes resources’ management and responsible planning. Stewardship is the role of leaders they have to play. Through stewarding the public budget, the leaders ensure the creation of value for the society (Wan). For being competent in public stewardship, the rational process exercised by leaders includes the three primary practices. The first is that leader must be of good character as the people with good character can easily recognize the ethical issues. Second, the leaders should have a bureaucratic style of leadership. They rather degrading their subordinates and clutching the overall powers to themselves should encourage them.
Ethical leaders take time on reflecting on matters that usually pit one critical value opposed to another. These leaders place collective interest above their self-interests. The third requirement is that the leader ought to have an ability to find out ways of integrating the cooperative goods into suitable decisions. Through this ability, leaders can integrate appropriate but different sets of value. These values should be in the leaders because the stewardship of public goods is intrinsically a social procedure and its enactment are often challenging (Van Wart, 155). For proper public stewardship, it is required that leaders consider themselves as steward and consider themselves accountable and responsible. Consequences of unethical or poor public stewardship
Stewardship is important for all organizations, but it is considered that it is more specifically crucial for public service officers as these people are liable for greater goods and delegated with the resources of the whole nation. Officers in public organizations have moral obligations of being a steward of the public goods. The poor public stewardship holds negative consequences for the economy. It results in not meeting the needs and requirements of the society. It can hurt the effectiveness of preparing the strategies and mission. Poor stewardship results in de-motivating the staff in working in the direction of the greater goods. Moreover, staff may show a lower level of involvement, satisfaction, trust, and commitment towards preparing efficient public strategies.
The aim of stewardship is to allocate the resources efficiently so the expenses can be reduced and budget deficits can be overcome. However, if leaders fail in good stewardship, then they have to face in efficient service utilization that would result in poor service delivery. Poor public stewardship does not allow leaders to decide on better utilization of limited resources that can result in a long-term public advantage. It results in poor public policies, enhances the risk of failure, and narrowing down the public interests (Wan).
Conclusion
Budgeting has a significant impact on the public policies. Therefore, its stewardship is important as it allows officers to prepare budgets with the aim of maximizing the goods for the society. Public stewardship allows professional and leaders to take the public’s interest above over their own. For being proper public stewardship, it is required that leader is ethical, has good character, and ability to integrate values with diverse sort of decisions. Poor public stewardship leads organizations and community both to the uncertain situation and results in several bad consequences. Therefore, it is essential for public officers and staff members to have the proper training of stewardship.
Works Cited
Lewis, Ronald J. Activity-based models for cost management systems. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995.
Liu, Xiaonan. Public Budgeting Reform in China: Theory and Practice. NY: Springer, 2015.
Russell, Jon. The Need for Better Stewardship over the Money Government Spends. Governing, Oct. 2014. Jan. 11, 2016. http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/voices/col-official-oversight-government-procurement-contracting-procurement.html
South Africa Information News. Budget 2015: South Africa raises income tax. Feb. 2015. Jan. 11, 2016. http://www.southafrica.info/news/budget-260215.htm#.VpNnSE-S9mQ
Van Wart, Montgomery. Dynamics of Leadership in Public Service: Theory and Practice. USA: Routledge, 2014.
Wan, Khoo Ee. Research Review: Stewardship in the Context of Public Sector Leadership. Civil service college, 2015. Jan. 11, 2016. https://www.cscollege.gov.sg/Knowledge/Pages/Stewardship-in-the-Context-of-Public-Sector-Leadership.aspx
