How a County Budget Is Made, From First Draft to Appropriation

A county budget is not written in June. By the time the assembly is voting on the estimates, the important decisions are already months old.

The calendar is set by the Public Finance Management Act 2012, and it runs on a financial year from 1 July to 30 June. Knowing the sequence is the whole difference between influencing a budget and complaining about one.

The sequence, in order

The plan comes first. Nothing can lawfully be funded outside an approved planning framework. The five-year County Integrated Development Plan sets the direction, and an annual development plan carves out the year's slice. The annual plan is tabled in the assembly by the start of September each year, which is the earliest public sight of what next year's budget is meant to buy. What to look for in it is set out in the county's five-year plan.

Then the review. A county budget review and outlook paper follows at the end of September each year, comparing last year's plan against last year's actual performance. This is the document that tells you whether a county spends what it approves.

Then the ceilings. The county fiscal strategy paper, due by the end of February each year, sets the broad allocations: how much goes to each sector, what the revenue assumptions are, what any borrowing plan looks like. This is the decisive document. Once the strategy paper is adopted, the shape of the budget is fixed and everything after it is an argument about margins.

Then the estimates. The executive submits detailed budget estimates to the county assembly by the end of April each year, broken down by department, programme and item.

Then the appropriation. The assembly considers the estimates, amends them within limits, and passes an appropriation act before the financial year ends, so that spending can begin on 1 July. A county finance act setting fees and charges goes with it.

Who is in the room at each stage

The executive drafts. Departments submit bids, the county treasury sets ceilings, and the county executive committee approves what goes across to the assembly.

The County Budget and Economic Forum, required by the Public Finance Management Act, is the standing consultation body. The Governor chairs it, executive members sit on it, and representatives of the public and organised groups are meant to sit on it too. It is supposed to be consulted on the plans and on the fiscal strategy paper.

The assembly's budget and appropriations committee reviews the estimates, holds hearings and reports to the whole assembly. The assembly can amend, but not freely. An increase in one line has to be matched by a reduction somewhere else, and amendments are meant to be consistent with the fiscal strategy paper the assembly already approved.

The public participates by law at several of these points. How to do that so it registers is in making a submission that has to be recorded.

What happens to the money after the vote

Approval is not release.

Money raised or received by a county government is paid into the County Revenue Fund, and withdrawals from that fund require the approval of the Controller of Budget, against the approved budget. That office authorises releases and reports on budget implementation. It is the control that keeps spending tied to what was actually voted.

After the financial year closes, the Auditor-General audits the county's accounts and produces a report. The report goes to the county assembly, which is required by the Constitution to debate and consider it and take appropriate action within the period allowed. The public accounts committee does the detailed examination.

That is the full loop: plan, ceiling, estimate, appropriation, release, audit, debate. A county that breaks the loop usually breaks it at the last step, where the audit report is tabled and never debated.

The distinction that explains most budget arguments

Development against recurrent.

Recurrent spending is salaries, allowances, fuel, rent and operations. Development spending is the road, the water line, the classroom block. The Public Finance Management Act sets a medium-term floor for the development share and the regulations set a ceiling for the wage bill. Ask your county for its current position against both, rather than for a percentage somebody quoted at a rally.

Learn one more distinction while you are at it: the approved budget, the revised budget after a supplementary appropriation, and actual expenditure are three different figures. Supplementary budgets are lawful and normal. A county that passes several large ones in a single year is telling you its original estimates were not serious.

What to do with the calendar before 10 August 2027

Two windows decide everything, and neither is the one people show up for.

The fiscal strategy paper stage is when sector ceilings are settled. The annual development plan stage is when projects enter the pipeline. Turning up in June to object to an appropriation is turning up after the decisions have been taken.

Put both windows in your phone. Ask the clerk when the hearings are, submit a written memorandum, keep the stamped copy, and then check the estimates when they are tabled to see whether anything you asked for survived. Related: every public fund a politician touches.