Coping with Fiscal Stress

The process by which large cities respond to fiscal stress is analyzed in light of the "garbage-can model" of organizational decision making. The model is informed by the assumption that choices are often ill-defined and ambiguous, resulting in a decision process that is poorly structured. When applied to the fiscal retrenchment process, the expectation is that the selection of various financial management strategies may be difficult to explain. To the extent that coherence exists, it is likely that the process will be executive-dominated. These expectations are generally confined when the retrenchment behavior of a large group of cities is tested within a multivariate framework.