Development of Strategic Tools for Managing the Financial Policy of a Modern City

The basic idea represented is the imperative of adopting a systems-based approach to the management of all components of the mechanism for attracting, employing, and allocating resources at the sub-national (state and municipal) levels. The necessity exists of integrating strategic management methodologies within the operations of public administration entities at both the state and municipal levels, in order to ensure systemic coherence among all contributing factors, including financial policy, which are crucial for attaining predetermined objectives. The central hypothesis posits that employing the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework, a well-established strategic management tool developed by Kaplan and Norton, will facilitate a systems-oriented approach across horizontal, vertical, and temporal dimensions. Further, the comparative analysis of existing literature is executed examining the adaptations of the BSC to the specific context of municipal governance institutions. An original BSC model is proposed for the management of municipalities. While sharing a general structural framework with the canonical Kaplan and Norton BSC model, the proposed model differentiates itself in terms of both the number of levels and the composition of those levels. Specifically, the fundamental level of objective setting, which dictates the structuring of all subsequent levels, is defined as a comprehensive set of "quality of life" goals. Future research directions for this study are outlined.

financial policy, state management, municipal management, municipalities, strategic management, balanced scorecard, quality of life