Research On Financial Budget Management Of Public Universities In China

The budget management is the core of financial management in higher educational institutes. A scientific and proper budget management is a process to realize the optimization of resource allocation. It helps enhance the efficiency of the use of funds, the development of higher educational institutes as well as their goals. However, the budget management system of higher educational institutes in China today is problematic whether in its external correspondence with the government or in its internal executions. These problems will not only prevent the budget system from performing its functions, but also hinder the institutes to realize their goals. This thesis is a case study to try analyzing the specific problems in sections of budget management in Chinese higher educational institutes----formation, execution, control, supervision and evaluation, etc. Eventually, we hope to provide some possible advices to improve the quality of their budget management.The budget management system in Chinese higher educational institutes is subordinate to the government public financial budget system. With the rise of Chinese reform and openness, China has been always reforming its public financial system. In2000, China executed a reform in the budget of central departments. It was an important symbol of the change in the government public financial system. This reform stipulated the process, method and content in the budget of higher educational institutes and became its foundation. Meanwhile, the precise connection between both the government and higher educational institutes became a vital problem.In the case, we made interviews to the officers related to finance and budget in a "certain university". What’s more, we found several problems within the five sections in the budget process mentioned above. And then we analyzed the reasons:1. In the section of budget formation, there exists a phenomenon called "two skins". The main reason is that the internal budget of the certain university is not corresponded with the government’s "categories of funds". The reasons also include: theuniversity’s development doesn’t fit with its plans; the methods used in the budget process are unscientific; the time for "formation" is improper, etc.2. In the section of budget execution, due to the delay of the time in the section of budget formation and the ambiguity of the goals, the execution rate of the budget in the university is low.3. In the section of budget control and supervision, the weakness of the controlling power and the loss of a standard criteria lead to the arbitrariness of the supervision process.Last but not the least, the loss of the system of budget evaluation makes it hard to solve some problems in budget process. Furthermore, this loss makes the officers in the departments look down upon budget. And it becomes a vicious circle.We insist that the five sections in the budget process interact among each other. Therefore, the budget management is a whole. People who take charge in university’s budget process should manage to control all those sections. Finally, this study provides several suggestions to help make the budget management system in higher educational institutes be more scientific and reasonable.