In this comprehensive essay on best practices for government budget officers, author Edward Anthony Lehan discusses budgeting as a craft rather than an art requiring virtuoso talent. This distinction is important because "craftsmanship" implies that the intellectual and practical aspects of budgeting can be codified and that the requisite knowledge and skill can be taught and learned.

Lehan strikes a critical note in the opening paragraph by identifying the necessity to ration scarce resources as "the" focus of the occupation. Governments employ budget officers to help publicly...

With today's technological advances, public finance officers have less to process on their own and more time to dedicate to the overall picture. An essential and crucial part of the picture is management.

If you're one of these public finance officers, this book is an essential read. Though you're technically already qualified for your role, there's always room to grow-especially in the realm of leadership and management. This is both a how-to and a how-to-think guide, and in it, Edward Anthony Lehan proposes and proves how models of management thinking and subsequent behavior can...