Who We Are
The Budget Experts are independent, experienced and performance-minded management consultants who were once local government managers. The parent company, Management Research and Consulting Associates, Inc. (d/b/a The Budget Experts), was originally founded in October, 2000 to assist Florida local governments with traditional management studies, program evaluations and fee studies focusing on performance and efficiency. We are former local government practitioners and subject matter experts who believe that local government should and can achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness than available from the private sector.
In 2008, MRCA, Inc. partnered with another Florida firm, eGov Consulting, LLC, who specialize in information technologies in order to integrate program performance with supporting data systems. We are data driven management consultants, not theorists. The partnership has allowed us to have an advantage over our competitors when it comes to information technology planning, evaluation, business process and management system improvements that will lead to further efficiency opportunities. Our products and performance models have been in development and refinement since the year 2000. The APPLE Management System is based on what has and has not worked in local government budget performance management over the past 15 years. The system responds to the requirement that performance must be measured in today’s fiscally-constrained environment.
Our Core Values
The management consultants employed by The Budget Experts believe in assisting local governments in developing a “Paradigm of Performance” at all levels within county, city and town government organizations. Our core values are reflective of the local government management system we created, the APPLE Management System, which stands for “Accountable Program Performance for Leadership Excellence.” Our vision is:
To create high performing, efficient and accountable local governments that through proven performance will eliminate the negative stereotypes of elected officials, government managers and public employees resulting in community support and pride in the cities and towns we all call home.
The core guiding principles of our vision are Accountability, Performance, and Leadership. Accountable program performance will lead to leadership excellence through efficiency and effectiveness. Programs are also a major part of our value system. We believe that the foundation of an effective budget and management system is an enhanced Program Performance Budget (PPB). To be most effective, PPB systems must be enhanced through the integration of program metrics and citizen participation through an annual operating budget program prioritization process.
Our Beliefs
We have observed that some quality improvement initiatives and programs are time consuming, costly and may be biased toward maximizing service levels without reviewing actual cost performance and efficiency data.
- We believe in and recognize the Performance and Quality movement in local government but feel it can be improved upon through simplification. Because minimizing local government costs through efficiency is our primary objective, we have selected only the critical components of “best of breed” local government management concepts so we may enhance performance in a systematic and cost efficient manner.
- We believe local governments should not strive to be only as efficient and effective as the private sector but must strive to be much more efficient and effective than the private sector.
- We believe entitlement thinking must be replaced with performance thinking. It used to be that government workers were seeking job security by settling for a lower compensation level than what was available in the private sector. Now that government salaries and benefits exceed those of the private sector in many service areas, government performance and efficiency must exceed private sector performance. If not, the taxpayer should buy the same service level from the private sector for less money.
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