Base Budgeting

No one seems very satisfied with what LJJ calls current services budgeting and I call incremental budgeting, in which the existing base is taken as a given and amounts are added and deducted based on the availability of funds, changes in costs, and changes in services demanded.

• What is it about this approach that leads to calls for various reforms? What are the problems that this approach can lead to?
• Despite concerns about it, many organizations continue to rely on some version of incremental budgeting. Why would they do so? What are the costs of reforms (and benefits to this approach)?
• What about you? Do you think incremental budgeting is "good enough" or do you think it is important for a thriving organization to move away from that model of budgeting? Why do you take that position?