Discussion Question- must respond to all three bullets below in minimum of 175 words
• What types of funding can affect public perception of a publicly funded agency and why?
• What is an example of an agency you know or have seen in the news whose funding suffered due to public perception? Do you agree with the treatment? Explain.
• What consequence should a government agency face if they are not accountable to their published budget?
RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING:
Local and federal funding are two of the most popular types of funding. Federal funding often comes from the government at the national level and is given to help organizations that are doing work for the greater good. When some publicly funded agencies are federally funded, they must follow certain guidelines on where the money goes and what it achieves. There are other ways to get funding that won’t negatively impact public perception of your organization. Local governments often have programs where they’ll provide grants or loans for non-profits that need them. This tends to be an easier process to work through with fewer restrictions.
The agency that I chose as an example is the Volkswagen scandal of 2015. Volkswagen took a big hit when it cheated emissions testing. Social media enhanced the damage by users making lewd comments about the product. Social media was not the only damage that hit Volkswagen, but so did World Finance. World Finance reported that a survey showed “public willingness to buy a Volkswagen fell by 28%, while the perception of the brand’s environmental consciousness had tumbled almost 50% (Mobley, 2019).
There should always be consequences for a government agency if they are not accountable to their published budget. It is like anything else in life. If you are not punished for your actions, then how will you learn from them? I believe the type of consequences depends on the nature of this incident and the history of the person or agency in previous situations. If it is a continuous mistake, then maybe that agency should be replaced with new people. If it is a one-time deal or an explainable situation, then they need to be corrected and warned to do better. These actions need to take place to get the best people for any agency creating budgets. Money is a very valuable tool that can make or break people.
RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING:
There are numerous types of funding that can affect public perception of an agency. However, two worth noting are local and federal. Local funding is a type of funding where local governments offer programs that provide loans and grants for non-profit organizations who detrimentally need them. Attaining this funding is typically easier and not as strict as federal funding because there aren’t as many restrictions and oversight on how money is spent. However, on the flipside, federal funding is funding at the national level that is useful for organizations to use because they can continue their efforts and work without spending money out of their own pockets. Unlike local funding, federal funding comes with “strings attached” because they enforce a strict set of guidelines to use their funding.
One example of an agency that I have seen in the news whose funding suffered due to public perception is the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The NEA is an independent federal agency that promotes, funds, and strengthens the creative capacity of the nation’s communities by providing all citizens with diverse opportunities for art participation. The NEA provides grants to art organizations and groups throughout the nation and is labelled as one of the only federal agencies to fund these organizations. The NEA received budget cuts due to being considered controversial to some legislators.
If a government agency is not accountable for their published budget, they will be unable to show proof of utilizing tax-payer dollars which leads to the government running itself inefficiently and placing unnecessary burdens on taxpayers. I believe in order deter this from happening, a consequence should be that the agency goes through an auditing process by independent auditors to see exactly how taxpayer dollars are being spent.
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