Abstract Until quite recently, methods of financial management in government have had relatively little attention from the general public, outside accountants or other non-Federal individuals skilled in these techniques. Yet this subject is of prime importance to every citizen; a glance at his Federal income tax return will show the reader just how important. Government accountants knew the defects in the system and the type of data produced and took remedial steps in their isolated areas, but since no one agency had clear overall responsibility it took outside surveys to initiate action on the basic government-wide flaws. For people familiar with current fiscal control, it can be said that the accrued expenditure package is a direct perpetuation of the present fiscal control, modified only to the extent of a new control base aimed at a specific condition and provision of a none-too-reliable means of computing the amount of the control base to be provided the agencies. A clear understanding of the weaknesses of accrued expenditures depends on a basic understanding of the Federal budget structure. Each executive agency has a number of functions for which it is responsible. Each of these would normally be considered as a budget program and would be successively subdivided to the level considered desirable for management.
Erle Cato (Wed,) studied this question.