User Friendly Budget

On January 14, 2015 the Local Finance Board (LFB), which is part of the Division of the Local Government Services in the State of New Jersey, adopted Rule: N.J.A.C. 5:30-3.8, which requires all New Jersey municipalities to annually complete a User-Friendly Budget document. As a result of this new requirement, New Jersey municipalities must, beginning with their respective 2015 fiscal years, submit a User-Friendly Budget document as part of their annual budget package to the State. Additionally, the State of New Jersey is requiring that municipalities provide a User-Friendly Budget not only in the proposed municipal budget, but also in the final adopted municipal budget.
As a result of this new the Local Finance Board rule, I am proposing
The New Jersey requirement is virtually unique and as such there are few if any direct relevant prior research resources upon which to draw. Nevertheless the following tangential resources are useful and instructive. The resources study the importance of citizen participation in the budget process and the necessity of creating an effective participatory budget process. Participatory budgeting means that citizens and local managers are working together to create an effective two-way dialogue. One key factor that stands out is the issue that municipal budgeting is complicated, technical and requires participants to have a certain level of knowledge on the budget process (Zhang & Liao, 2014). This factor demonstrates that local managers have a difficult task of effectively engaging citizens in there budget process. However, the research demonstrates that the control for effective citizen participation lies exclusively in the hands of local managers. If local managers are against citizen engagement then their municipality will have a weak participatory budget process (Zhang &
In order to test whether or not the User-Friendly Budget requirement is having an impact on participation levels in local government, I need to further break down the methodology of the research I will be conducing. The research will consist of the use of two different surveys. In my research, the dependent variable is Citizen Participation and the independent variable is the User-Friendly Budget. I am testing to see whether or not the User-Friendly Budget will have any impact on citizen participation. The research is not focused on finding ways to change the User-Friendly budget document. Rather, does the document in its current form have any effect on citizen participation in local