Ethics in Fiscal Administration: An Introduction integrates ethics into the public administration curriculum by weaving ethical dilemmas into the financial management and budgeting process of the public and nonprofit sectors. Inquiry-based discussion prompts challenge students to examine scenarios that they are likely to encounter in professional public service careers.
Critics of the public sector often use the analogy that government should be run more like a business. Issues such as profitability versus social value preclude the public sector from becoming a mirror image of the private sector; however, ethical decision making in fiscal administration is an important concern across sectors. Using examples drawn from the public and nonprofit arenas, Ethics in Fiscal Administration: An Introduction will help prepare future budget managers and other public administrators for the important work of upholding the public financial trust.
Biography
Angela Pool-Funai is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, Director of the Master of Public Administration program, and interim Associate Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Southern Utah University, USA.
"A book for any MPA course! Pool-Funai grapples with all the important moral and ethical issues facing public servants, integrating theories into modern decision making. Transparency. Whistle-blowing. Technology. Government versus Business. You name it; she offers a case scenario to prompt an extraordinary classroom discussion." – Patricia Keehley, Southern Utah University, USA
"The author importantly presents an ethical framework that emphasizes the importance of transparency, participation, and collaboration in the public sector. Serious students and practitioners of public administration and fiscal policy should read this book as a catalyst for their own careers." – James Walter Peterson, Professor Emeritus, Valdosta State University, USA
"Life is all about people. Dr. Pool-Funai’s thought provoking work outlines the need of an ethical framework to ensure we can live, work, and play together. From the early philosophers and founding fathers to modern practitioners, Dr. Pool-Funai details the need for ethics, virtue, justice, and protection of society’s common good. Technological advances, increasing the complexity of society, underscores the importance of both the art and science of good public administration to ensure the government’s power to tax, and therefore control, is moderated by appropriate checks and balances. Ethical fiscal policy and administration becomes the ultimate valve through which 'we the people' can better our lives by guiding those we elect to govern." – Marvin L. Dodge, Southern Utah University, USA