Correspondence 1992-1993 Waldron

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. 18 achieve these program goals, the program's administrators seek "budgetary security" to avoid significant reductions in the agency's budget within the following few years,31 More than budget security, some argue, bureaucrats seek to maximize the budget of their program in order to increase "salary, perquisites of the office, public reputation, power, patronage, and output of the bureau," on the condition that the costs of supplying the output expect�d of th� bureau are less than the budget.3� To maximize budgets, heads of buraaus "do what they rz.� to win favor in the eyes of officials in the legislature and at the highest golitical lcv�ls of the administrati�n. "33 Once a program is in place, program administrators "have no more important interest than the continuance of the programs they administer"; they becoane th� major coalition leaders in favor of the established programs." Assuring budget s�curity� gu�nteeing continuation of a program, and maximizing budgets make �ossibl� tk�e functioning of programs, but ihe activities required also can undtrnaine programs' capaci�y to achie.�e explicit goals. Ht�w well does this explanation rnatch the exp�rience of d�e Sr�all Cities �conomic Developmer�t Program? In many ways it fits the stary of the Small Cities Economic �evelopment Program� but in important respects it falls short of providing an�d�quate axplanation of the program's results. The discussion below first lo�oks at how the exp�anati�n �. ��R. I�ougl�s Araold� �on�rcs �d tba Bureauc„�acv (Ncw I�aveno C'I': Yale Uaiversity Presst 1979)� p, Z�. uWilliam A. Niskanen, �3u_ t�esu�ratcv and ReJ��;:tetive Govemm �t 36. (Chicago: AJdiee Athtrton� 1971)� p. � Eugeae Bard�ch, �� 1e �qnlementation Game• What Hanpans Afier � Bill BocamcS A i aw (Cambridgs, MA: MIT Press, 1977), p. 71. �'A�old, Con�ress and the Bureaucracv, p, 51.