writing need help please
Assessment of a program in a law enforcement agency is critical to ensuring that all the objectives that were meant to be achieved by the program are met, and thus, determine if the program warrants its place in the common budget. The program needs to be evaluated by both internal and external bodies that work independently. It is the duty of the leaders within the agency to oversee this evaluation and to ensure it runs effectively. The success of the program can be determined by looking at different levels of the program and evaluating them at each stage. The program can be evaluated based on the level of compliance with the regulatory bodies, effective service delivery to the intended group, efficiency in the management style of the firm and ability to tackle the problems and risks that may come up within the program (Lee, 2007). Leaders of the agencies can use the parameters to evaluate growth of the program. They are tasked with the duty of knowing what the purpose of the program was and how it was meant to make it succeed.
Discussion
The role of the leaders within the agencies moves beyond evaluation of the program to control of funds meant for the financing of its activities. Sound knowledge on the financial requirements of the program is mandatory to building a program that works and achieves its meant purpose. The leaders of the agency should work with all the stakeholders in determining the appropriate budget allocation to each section of the program. It will make it easier for them to decide on what is added to or eliminated from the program’s budget. The decision to make any changes to the budget should be determined by the use of each item within the program. The leader of the agency should work with partners within and outside the organization to decide on what is added and/or eliminated from the budget. The partners should be experts for each item of evaluation within the program. For instance, financial experts need to be consulted on budget adjustments and how they might affect the financial state of the program within the agency. Therefore, for an effective evaluation, every section of the program needs to be evaluated by. The whole process must include all the stakeholders for conclusive results.
In addition, an all-inclusive evaluation will be able to accurately determine what the program needs and does not require. For example, programs that are mandatory such salaries of the employees, they must be factored in the budget while those that are not entirely needed by the program must be justified on why they should be included. Therefore, the decision to eliminate a program should be left to the leader of the agency but they should have wide consultations with other stakeholder sin order to reach a conclusive decision. Leaders are tasked with the duty of overseeing this process since they are the custodians of the agencies but they should act on counsel from all the policy makers including regulatory bodies.
The programs that must continue to receive funding should be divided into two sections. The mandatory programs and those necessary but not urgent or the agency can do without. This will help ensure that the most urgent needs of the program are sorted in the budget before any extra fund scan be channeled to other activities that are not very important. The factors that the organization cannot avoid such as the salaries of the employees must be included within the budget. Payment of wages is mandatory but has associated risks. It becomes expensive when more personnel are hired to provide services to people. The agency has to incur extra expenses such as purchase of equipment to be used by each of the employees. Hence, much as the program aim sat improving provision of services by increasing the workforce, leaders have to be prepared to incur other joint expenditures that come with the hiring of new officers. Further, funds for the daily maintenance of equipment and other items such as vehicles must be part of the budget to avoid any inconveniences (Mikesell, 2011). Funding for maintenance would be mandatory but the risk associated factors comes in where the equipment degenerates with time. It would be expensive funding this rather than just buying a new equipment that does not require much maintenance costs. In addition, utility bills must be in the budget since the program cannot do without them. Some of these include water and electricity bills that are often recurrent. It would be possible though to cut down on the cost of the utilities by encouraging g the users within the program to reduce on wastage. The cost of the budget allocation can therefore reduce and funds channeled elsewhere for other uses.
Despite the fact that the mandatory item scan not be avoided within the budget, there is need to evaluate them every time a budget is drawn in order to factor in cases of inflation. Critical assessments should be done to avoid creating a budget that does not consider any eventualities (Stuart, n.d). Therefore, leaders within the organization must ensure that they include different stakeholders to assist when making budgetary allocations. It might help reduce wastage of funds but at the same time creating more finances to facilitate funding of other necessary items the program requires. The leader of the program tasked with the duty of approving any budgetary allocations should carefully examine the distributions of the budget before handing it over to the controlling authority that provides the funds. It will give the leader an opportunity of justifying the budget allocations to the superiors without having any problems. A well-formulated budget can easily get approval if the right items are added.
Conclusion
To sum up, assessment of a program in a law enforcement agency is critical to ensuring that all the objectives that were meant to be achieved by the program are met, and thus, determine if the program warrants its place in the common budget. The leader of an agency should ensure that they come up with an evaluation management system that will guarantee effective service provision to the people. The system should be comprehensive enough to include all the professionals and heads of the regulatory bodies. It is particularly important to have leaders of regulatory authorities so as to ensure everything is done as stipulated within the law.
References
Lee, W. D. (2007). Program evaluations: improving operational effectiveness and organizational efficiency. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
Mikesell, J. (2011). Fiscal administration, analysis and applications for the public sector (8th Ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage.
Stuart, R.D., (n.d.). Budgeting Basics. Institute for Criminal Justice, Inc. (ICJE). Retrieved from http://www.icje.org/articles/BudgetingBasics.pdf
i don’t see a thesis statement, PLease tell me what you think i think maybe if i would have evaluated a program make ny corrections thankd