Construction of Budgets
The most appropriate methodologies for constructing voting operations budgets will vary according to the structure of the electoral management body (national, regional or local), whether a sole body is responsible for all voting operations activities or whether these are divided among different organisations on either a geographic or functional basis, and the public sector budgeting cycle.
'Global' budgets are required to establish overall funding needs and to identify areas where donor or other organisations' resources may be required to fill shortfalls in funding. Budgets for different geographic and functional administrative units and project budgets assist the efficient and effective allocation of funds to specific areas of voting operations.
There are two general approaches that could be taken in constructing voting operations budgets:
- a top-down approach, where an estimate is made on a global level and then split into project or functional and geographic locality budgets;
- a bottom-up approach, where the particular needs of individual geographic localities, projects and functions are determined, reviewed for validity and if necessary revised, then amalgamated into an overall global budget.
(These are of necessity simplifications of perhaps two extremes of the budget construction process).
Top-Down Budgeting
Examples of a top-down budget approach include:
- determining voting operations budgets on the basis of global expenditure at the last election (perhaps adjusted for price data changes, or government policies on movements in agency budget allocations);
- determining from historic or other data an overall estimated cost per voter and deriving the global budget from that figure.
Individual projects, functions, localities are then allocated portions of the global pie according to standard criteria.
Generally, this is not the most effective means of voting operations budget determination. It does not necessarily allow for local variations to be considered, for changes in systems, procedures and conditions, or allow a proper prioritising of voting operations needs. By denying initial input to project and locality or regional managers, it removes one of the key factors in developing financial management capacities and any ownership of budgeting processes. It has the advantage of being a quick and dirty solution to the need for a budget.
Bottom-Up Approach
The bottom-up alternative is likely to produce a more realistic outcome, if combined with requirements for rigorous justification and review on objective output achievement grounds. Budgets are built up by estimating according to defined cost categories (which ideally would go as low as staffing in individual voting stations, costs of each election form's design and production, and the like) the cost of each voting operations project, at a local geographic management unit level where feasible. (An example of some costing worksheets for constructing voting operations budgets in such a manner can be found in Budget - Sample Costing Worksheets.)
Advantages of this method are:
- takes full account of current and projected systems, procedures and local conditions;
- allows a proper prioritising of funding needs, and thus more rational decisions if activities have to be curtailed to meet available funding;
- encourages ownership of budget processes throughout the organisation;
- allows identification of potential areas of both management efficiency and inefficiency;
- provides a solid, supportable basis for bids for funding.
Its disadvantages are that it is a slower, iterative process, and that project and locally-based budgets need to be rigorously examined to eliminate any duplication and excessive bids for funds compared to outputs. Defining global budgets through this bottom-up process is highly preferable, even if not developed to the fullest extent due to time constraints.
