The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guide to Budgets and Financial Management (Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guides) [Paperback]

Margaret J. Barr (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 078795957X | ISBN-13: 978-0787959579 | Publication Date: October 8, 2002 | Edition: 1

Newly appointed academic managers are often unsure how to effectively manage their department's fiscal affairs. The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guide to Budgets and Financial Management is specifically designed for administrators who need guidance for managing the fiscal resources of a department or unit. Using this book, administrators can learn to better understand the broad fiscal context of their institutions and thereby master their own role and function within the institution.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Newly appointed academic managers are often unsure how to effectively manage their department's fiscal affairs. The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guide to Budgets and Financial Management is specifically designed for administrators who need guidance for managing the fiscal resources of a department or unit. Using this book, administrators can learn to better understand the broad fiscal context of their institutions and thereby master their own role and function within the institution. In addition, this practical resource

• Offers an understanding of the basics of budgeting and fiscal management in higher education
• Defines the elements of a budget, the budget cycle, and the steps for creating a budget
• Suggests ways of avoiding common pitfalls and problems often faced by new budget managers
• Offers effective strategies for dealing with loss of resources
• Includes helpful questions, a glossary of useful terms, and a list of suggested readings

This one-of-kind resource is an invaluable tool for understanding and mastering budgeting and fiscal management— skills necessary for success as an academic administrator.

About the Author

Margaret J. Barr is professor emerita in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. In her academic career she has been responsible for operating budget supervision and has supervised operating budgets for both general and auxiliary enterprises. She is the author or editor of numerous books and monographs including The Handbook of Student Affairs Administration, Second Edition, with Mary K. Desler (Jossey-Bass, 2000).

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (October 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078795957X
• ISBN-13: 978-0787959579
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #381,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Budgets for beginners, December 21, 2010

By 

Stanley Maloy (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guide to Budgets and Financial Management (Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guides) (Paperback)

It is not clear who the real audience of this book is. For the most part, this book seems to be written for someone planning to take a position working on budgets in a university setting -- it provides a very basic background with more of a philosophical perspective than concrete advice on working with numbers. The chapter on "potential pitfalls in fiscal management" would be particularly useful for new budget managers. In contrast, the chapter on "dealing with budget cuts" provides some valuable perspectives into alternative approaches planning and implementing substantial budget reductions across multiple units -- advice that is probably more useful for an administrator responsible for making major decisions that impact many facets of a college or university with different units that each have distinct budgets.

In short, if you are a new budget analyst for a department, school, or college, or if you are a new dean with little budgeting experience you may find this book useful. It is short, fast reading, and well written. In contrast, if you have been in the business for a little while and are looking for tips on how to be more effective, you will probably not learn very much from this book.

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Elementary, November 8, 2010

By 

Richard B. Schwartz (Columbia, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guide to Budgets and Financial Management (Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator's Guides) (Paperback)

This could have been given one star or five, depending on the book's potential audience. Any academic with a barebones sense of how universities work and an elementary awareness of budgeting will find the book to be too basic to be useful. An innocent individual with little sense of how such institutions operate may find it very useful. Hence, I split the difference and gave it three stars.

If you don't know the difference between operating budgets and capital budgets, this book will be useful. If you don't know the meaning of 'fiscal year' versus 'calendar year' or revenues versus expenditures, this book is for you. If you're a person trying to read a balance sheet and wonder what kind of items might be included under 'Transfers', this book will not tell you. If you want to know whether or not most university athletics areas pay their own way or why university renovation costs are so high, this book will not tell you. If you were not aware of the fact that university budgeting requires guidelines and timetables, you need to read this book.

The book is largely philosophical, i.e., it tells you what you should be thinking about and what you need to do (in the most general of terms). It does not provide crisp statistical information, detailed information on best practices or guides to financial terminology (though there is a two and a quarter page glossary at the end (which explains such words as 'endowment' and 'appropriation'). It will tell you what 'responsibility centered management' means, but it will not give you a mini- case study on how this has worked (or failed) at a representative institution.

In short, it is very, very basic. It also includes some surprising statements, for example, the description of cost centered management as requiring individual units to 'stand on their own bottoms'. The usual phrasing is 'float on their own bottoms' or the unit as a 'tub' which 'floats on its own bottom'. Standing on one's own bottom requires a physical capacity beyond most humans and the phrasing undercuts our faith in the author's authority. I don't say that to be snarky; I simply want to warn potential readers that they are likely to require something more advanced.