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68style · 06-02-2024, 09:42 PM

I don't know what level of government you're talking about, but I can answer on federal.

And the answer is quite complicated/nuanced...

There's different types of money. There's Vote 5 or Capital money which is for things that are $10,000+ and then there's regular expenditures <10,000 and you can't cross over from one to the other, at least not easily or conventionally anyway.

Generally speaking, if you don't spend it you "lose" it, so there's definitely incentive to spend it... but you don't necessarily get punished for it with a lower budget in the next fiscal year and when I say you "lose" it, it just means it gets moved over to another program or silo that needed it more or overspent their budget within the same department. It's also become more popular to do what's called a "carry forward" especially on cap/vote 5 money so you can carry money into the next fiscal year and spend it then. Some managers/directors/ministers try to dissuade this though, I think it affects their bonuses somehow. Programs I work with do a lot of carry forwards because it can take Ford or GM up to 9 months to deliver a truck and if it's a custom build 5-tonne it can be over a year sometimes, so carry forwards are a must.

Anyway the simple answer is it's "somewhat" true but not really in the wasteful way you have heard or gets tossed around. What you are hearing is from programs that figured out they had money left over in a fiscal year, so they will look to spend it on things they thought they couldn't buy earlier in the year. You will see a big rush in March for the federal government because March 31st is the end of fiscal and at the very least delivery of an item purchased need to be physically confirmed by that date to be able to count it in that fiscal year. I have gone as far as to drive out to a dealership on March 31st and touch/take a photo of a VIN so we could claim it delivered in current fiscal. The worst thing I've ever seen was a manager say we could all get a new keyboard at the end of the year as long as it was <$150... so big whoop, I wouldn't call that wasteful I definitely felt like most people needed one and we couldn't buy f-all all year. Oh, and one program had extra capital money a couple years ago and they wanted to buy an eletric car since we're under massive pressure to do that right now, so I helped them replace a 2009 Malibu with a Tesla since we could deliver it fast enough to make the cutoff. I know, I know... ME helping a progam buy a friggin TESLA... it hurt me almost as much as you are imagining.

I can't speak for provincial or municipal though.

06-02-2024, 09:42 PM	#6863
68style Performance Moderator Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Richmond Posts: 19,408 Thanked 21,413 Times in 7,299 Posts Failed 331 Times in 220 Posts	I don't know what level of government you're talking about, but I can answer on federal. And the answer is quite complicated/nuanced... There's different types of money. There's Vote 5 or Capital money which is for things that are $10,000+ and then there's regular expenditures <10,000 and you can't cross over from one to the other, at least not easily or conventionally anyway. Generally speaking, if you don't spend it you "lose" it, so there's definitely incentive to spend it... but you don't necessarily get punished for it with a lower budget in the next fiscal year and when I say you "lose" it, it just means it gets moved over to another program or silo that needed it more or overspent their budget within the same department. It's also become more popular to do what's called a "carry forward" especially on cap/vote 5 money so you can carry money into the next fiscal year and spend it then. Some managers/directors/ministers try to dissuade this though, I think it affects their bonuses somehow. Programs I work with do a lot of carry forwards because it can take Ford or GM up to 9 months to deliver a truck and if it's a custom build 5-tonne it can be over a year sometimes, so carry forwards are a must. Anyway the simple answer is it's "somewhat" true but not really in the wasteful way you have heard or gets tossed around. What you are hearing is from programs that figured out they had money left over in a fiscal year, so they will look to spend it on things they thought they couldn't buy earlier in the year. You will see a big rush in March for the federal government because March 31st is the end of fiscal and at the very least delivery of an item purchased need to be physically confirmed by that date to be able to count it in that fiscal year. I have gone as far as to drive out to a dealership on March 31st and touch/take a photo of a VIN so we could claim it delivered in current fiscal. The worst thing I've ever seen was a manager say we could all get a new keyboard at the end of the year as long as it was <$150... so big whoop, I wouldn't call that wasteful I definitely felt like most people needed one and we couldn't buy f-all all year. Oh, and one program had extra capital money a couple years ago and they wanted to buy an eletric car since we're under massive pressure to do that right now, so I helped them replace a 2009 Malibu with a Tesla since we could deliver it fast enough to make the cutoff. I know, I know... ME helping a progam buy a friggin TESLA... it hurt me almost as much as you are imagining. I can't speak for provincial or municipal though.