The anatomy of a budget recommendation

How analysts make recommendations to the budget director and governor depends partly on the nature of the state budget office (SBO). This paper contrasts the development of a budget recommendation in an office with a strong policy orientation with recommendations fashioned in an office with a strong control orientation. One important difference is that control oriented analysts focus almost exclusively on the technical and legal facets of budget problems, whereas their policy oriented counterparts spend considerable time on the social, legal, and political (SLP) facets. The SLP framework enables the policyoriented analysts to apply economic rationality to evaluate requests and make recommendations that are consonant with the governor’s policy agenda.