**2024 Calls for Award Nominations**
The deadline for submission of all award nominations is July 1, 2024.
Michael Curro Student Paper Award
Best Book in Public Budgeting and Finance Award
Aaron Wildavsky Award
The was established in 1993 as a lifetime achievement award for work in budgeting and financial management in memory of Dr. Aaron Wildavsky. Professor Wildavsky was a pioneering scholar in the fields of government budgeting, public policy, and policy analysis. He is most remembered for his work on the theory and concept of budgetary incrementalism, which was often held in contrast to rational decision approaches to public management and policy outcomes. His academic contributions include 37 books numerous articles on a wide variety of policy and budgeting topics including budgetary process, policy analysis, political culture, foreign affairs, public administration, strategic choice, and comparative government. His book, Politics of the Budgetary Process, which was first published in 1964, is still one of the most widely read and cited studies of federal budgeting- now at its 5th edition (2003). He spent most of his career at the University of California at Berkeley where he was the founding dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy.
Aaron Wildavsky Award Winners
2024 – Robert L. Bland
Robert L. Bland is Endowed Professor of local government (2014-present) in the department of public administration at the University of North Texas, and a premier scholar and educator of local government finance. He received a B.A. in biology and history from Pepperdine University (1973), both the M.P.A. (1975) and M.B.A. (1976) from the University of Tennessee, and the Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh (1981), before joining UNT (1982-present) where he served as Chair (1992-2013) and received its Eminent Faculty Award (2023). He built high quality training programs and designed the premier state testing program for local finance officers. In addition to numerous scholarly articles and chapters, his books include Budgeting: A Guide for Local Governments (1997; 4th edition, 2019) and A Revenue Guide for Local Governments (1989; 2005), both published by the International City/County Management Association. ICMA awarded him the Sweeney Memorial Academic Award (1987) and elected him as honorary lifetime member (2017). He is an elected NAPA fellow (2012) and served as the chair of ABFM (2022), member of the board of directors of PFP, Inc. (2018-2023), and is currently ABFM’s GASAC representative (2024-).
2023 – Yilin Hou
Yilin Hou is a professor of public finance at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, with a focus on budgeting mechanisms and the real property tax. He holds a B.A. from Hebei Normal University (1985), an M.A. from Tsinghua University, China (1988); M.A. (1998), and PhD (2002) in public administration from Syracuse. He held faculty positions in applied linguistics at Tsinghua University (1988-1997), then in public administration at Rutgers University Newark (2002-2003), the University of Georgia (2003-2013), and Syracuse (2013-present). At Georgia, he was Stanley W. Shelton Professor of Public Finance; at Syracuse, he is Maxwell Tenth Decade Faculty Scholar. Besides numerous scholarly articles, his books include State Government Budget Stabilization (2013), Local Government Budget Stabilization (2015), Research in Scheme Design of Property Taxation (in Chinese, 2016) and Development, Governance, and Real Property Tax in China (2018). He also publishes extensively on Chinese public finance with numerous recognitions for this work.
2022 – John R. Bartle
John Bartle is a distinguished professor and dean emeritus (2011-2024) in the College of Public Affairs and Community Service at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His B.A. in economics is from Swarthmore College (1979), his MPA from the University of Texas (1983), and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University (1990) after which he joined the faculty of SUNY Binghamton (1990-1994) before the University of Nebraska Omaha (1994-present). Before his academic career, he worked with the American Enterprise Institute (1979-1981), the City of Saint Paul, MN (1982), the Minnesota Tax Study Commission (1983-1985), and the Minnesota Taxpayer Association (1985-1987). In addition to numerous scholarly articles, his books include Evolving Theories of Public Budgeting (2001), Sustainable Development for Public Administration (2009), Management Policies in Local Government Finance (2012), and Innovative Infrastructure Finance (2022). Recognitions include NAPA fellow (2010), NAPA Treasurer (2024), ABFM chair (2006), ASPA President-Elect (2023-2025) and ASPA’s Truitt-Felbinger Award on transportation scholarship (2022).
2021 – M. Peter van der Hoek
M. Peter van der Hoek is a retired professor from Erasmus University Rotterdam (1974-2010) and is widely recognized for his focus on fiscal issues of the Netherlands, in particular, and, more broadly, Europe. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Erasmus University (1974). He was editor of the journal Public Finance and Management from 1998 to 2021. His recognitions include SECoPA’s Boorsma international award (2013), election to four non-consecutive terms on ABFM’s executive committee starting in 2006, president of ASPA’s international chapter (2013), and leadership roles in several European academic associations including the Forum for Economists International (2011). Among numerous articles, his books include Condition for Direct Foreign Investments in the Baltic States (1996) and Handbook of Public Administration and Policy in the European Union (2005). In addition to courses taught in South Africa and China, he headed several fiscal projects in Eastern Europe, including Romania and the Ukraine.
2020 – Merl Hackbart
Merl Hackbart is professor emeritus of finance and public administration at the Martin School at the University of Kentucky. With a B.S. in agricultural economics from South Dakota State University (1963), and a Ph.D. in economics from Kansas State University (1968), he held a faculty position at the University of Wyoming (1968-1972) before serving as South Dakota’s Director of Economic Analysis for the Planning Office (1972) and deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation (1973). In 1973, he joined the University of Kentucky as Director of the Center for Public Affairs and continued as director when it became the Martin School for Public Administration (1973-1982; 2012-2016), and board member of the Henry Clay Center. With a dual appointment with the business school, he served there as associate dean (2005-2011) and Interim Dean (2011-2012). For the Commonwealth of Kentucky, he served as a member of the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education and the Kentucky Consensus Revenue Forecasting Group, as well as Budget Director (1982-1983; 1989-1991) and as Senior Policy Advisor to the Governor (1998-2002), and on the Kentucky Public Pensions Authority (2021-2025). He is a past President of the ABFM (1999-2000) and recipient of ABFM’s 2007 Howard Award.
2019 – Michael Pagano
Michael A. Pagano a former Dean (2007-2021, emeritus) and professor of public administration, and founding director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois Chicago, is a scholar of urban development and finance. His B.A. is from Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in government is from the University of Texas at Austin (1980) before gaining faculty rank at Miami University (1980-2001) and then UIC (2001-2022, emeritus). His earlier positions included research positions with the Pittsburgh Regional Study Group (1977) and a private research firm (1978-1980). Between 1991 and 2021, he wrote the annual City Fiscal Conditions report for the National League of Cities. In addition to numerous articles, his books include Cityscapes and Capital (1995), Terra Incognita (2004), The Dynamics of Federalism (2007), and The People’s Money (2019). He is a former editor of Urban Affairs Review (2001-2014), a NAPA fellow (2006), a former nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, and he received ASPA’s Stone distinguished scholar award for intergovernmental management, ASPA’s Elazar distinguished scholar of federalism award, and APSA’s Agranoff award for federalism public engagement.
2018 – Roy Meyers
Roy T. Meyers as professor of political science and affiliate professor of public policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (1990-2022) focused on practical improvements in the budget process and of Congress. He earned a B.A. from Colby College (1976) and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (1988). He finished his dissertation that won the APSA’s L.D. White Award (1988) while working at the Congressional Budget Office (1981-1990). After his CBO career, he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus. In addition to numerous journal articles and contemporary commentaries, his books include Strategic Budgeting (1994) and the Handbook of Government Budgeting (1990). He is a NAPA Fellow (2014).
2017 – Jeffrey Chapman & Paul Posner
Jeffrey Ian Chapman [January 16, 1944 – June 27, 2022] was Emeritus Foundation Professor of Applied Public Finance, School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. His research focused mainly on local government fiscal stress, revenue structure, and tax incentives. His degrees in economics were an A.B. from Occidental College (1967) and both the M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1971), with the dissertation on a model of crime and police output, from the University of California, Berkeley. He did a post-doc at UCLA (1971), a faculty rank at the University of Southern California (1973-1999) where he was director of the Sacramento Center (1982-1986; 1997-1998), before joining Arizona State University (1999-2013) as director of the School of Public Affairs (1999-2003) and interim dean (2004-2005). He conducted significant work with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and was a member of the Arizona Economic Round Table and on the board of the Grand Canyon Institute. His books include Proposition 13 and Land Use (1981), Long Term Financial Planning: Creative Strategies for Local Government (1987), and The Local Budget as a Complex System (2022).
Paul Posner [1947 – July 5, 2017] was director of the George Mason University’s Scar School of Policy and Government (2005-2017) and made valuable contributions to understanding the budgetary aspects of federalism. He authored The Politics of Unfunded Mandates (1998) which received the 2008 Martha Derthick Best Book Award given by Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Management of the American Political Science Association, from which also he received their Daniel J. Elazar Distinguished Scholar award (2017). Numerous articles and reports included the 2001 Burkhead award-winning article in Public Budgeting & Finance. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and worked for the New York City budget bureau. He served for 30 years with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, where he achieved leadership positions. He was a former president of the ASPA (2010-2011) and ABFM (2000-2001), and a Fellow (1996) and Chair of the Board of the NAPA (2016-2017). He received AABPA’s Blum Award (2005) and ABFM’s Howard Award (2009) and, in his honor, ABFM created in 2018 the Posner Award for a lifetime achievement for significant contributions made to the field of budgeting and financial management as both a practitioner and an academic (2018).
2016 – Katherine Willoughby
Katherine Willoughby is the Golembiewski Professor of Public Administration at the University of Georgia with an outstanding research record on performance budgeting. She received a B.S. in psychology from Duke University (1980), an MPA from North Carolina State University (1984), and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (1991) for which she received NASPA’s dissertation award for analyzing the decision-making orientations of state budget analysts. She held faculty rank at Georgia State University (1989-2017) before joining the University of Georgia (2017-present). She is co-editor of Public Administration Review (2024-), a NAPA fellow (2013), and past ABFM chair (2010). For each yearly Book of the States (2003-2017), she analyzed all the state-of-the-state addresses by American governors. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, her books include Policy and Politics in State Budgeting (2001), Public Budgeting in Context (2014), Sustaining the States (2014), and Public Performance Budgeting (2019) which received ABFM’s best book award (2022). She headed the money management section of the Government Performance Project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts (2003-2008).
2015 – William (Bill) Simonsen
William Simonsen is a professor in the School of Public Policy, University of Connecticut, focusing on municipal bonds and citizen budget preferences. He received a B.A. in geography from the State University of New York at Oswego (1979), the MCRP from Harvard University (1981), and a Ph.D. in public administration from New York University (1991). Before joining the Connecticut faculty (2001) he held faculty rank at the University of Oregon (1990-2001). He worked with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (1981-1983), and with New York City as a supervising analyst with the Mayor’s budget office (1983-1985) and assistant with the human resources administration (1985-1986), before joining Moody’s Investors Service as assistant vice president (1986-1990). He was editor of Public Budgeting & Finance (2013-2017) and received NASPA’s Whittington Excellence in Teaching award (2008). In addition to numerous scholarly articles, and many empirical analyses of municipal bond sales, his book on Citizen Participation in Resource Allocation (2000) examines methods of involving citizens in the budget process.
2014 – Joseph White
Joseph White is Luxenberg Family professor of public policy at Case Western Reserve University. His early work focused on federal budgeting before adding a further focus on health policy and politics, especially cost control issues. He earned his B.A. from the University of Chicago (1976) and both his M.A. (1982) and Ph.D. (1989) from the University of California, Berkeley. After working with The Brookings Institution (1988-1997) first as a research associate and then Senior Fellow, he was an associate professor at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (1998-2000) and then joined Case Western (2000-present). Among his publications are The Deficit and the Public Interest (1989, 1991, with Aaron Wildavsky), Competing Solutions: American Health Care Proposals and International Experience (1995); and False Alarm: Why the Greatest Threat to Social Security and Medicare is the Campaign to ‘Save’ Them (2001, 2003).
2013 – James Savage
James D. Savage is a professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia (1990-present) and is known for comparative budgeting and macro budgetary rules. He has bachelor’s degrees in political science (1973) and psychology (1975) and an MA in political science (1975) from the University of California Riverside, and the MPP (1977), an M.A. in economics (1980), and a Ph.D. (1986) in political science from University of California Berkeley for which his dissertation received APSA’s Lasswell Award (1987). He served the University of California System as a federal relations analyst (1980-1990) and the University of Virginia as Assistant Vice President for Research and Federal Relations and then as Executive Assistant to the President for Federal Government Relations (1997-2005). His books include Balancing Budgets and American Politics (1988), Funding Science in America (1999), Making the EMU: The Politics of Budgetary Surveillance and the Enforcement of Maastricht (2005), and Reconstructing Iraq’s Budgetary Institutions (2013), and Comparative Public Budgeting (2021). He is a NAPA fellow (2014), a former ABFM chair (2012), and has served as a visiting professor at several overseas research centers.
2012 – Philip Joyce
Phillip Joyce is a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy with influential scholarship on public budgeting and performance measurement. He received a B.A. in history from Thiel College (1978), an MPA from Pennsylvania State University (1979), and a Ph.D. in public administration from Syracuse University (1990), with faculty rank at the University of Kentucky (1989-1990), Syracuse University (1995-1999), and George Washington University (1999-2010) before joining the University of Maryland (2011-present) where he was senior associate dean (2015-2022). His career includes work for the Illinois Bureau of the Budget (1979-1983), the Illinois Department of Corrections (1983-1986), and the Congressional Budget Office (1991-1995) where he received its Director’s Distinguished Service Award (1992). Other recognitions include editor of Public Budgeting & Finance (2011-2017), NAPA fellow (2005), NASPA’s Staats Award (2009), AAPBA’s Blum Award, and the Burkhead Award (1994) from Public Budgeting & Finance. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, his books include The Congressional Budget Office (2011), Government Performance (2003), and Public Budgeting Systems (2004). His expertise is recognized through extensive legislative testimony, sponsored research, and columns in Governing magazine.
2011 – Gerald J. Miller
Gerald J. Miller was a professor of public administration in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University until retirement in 2017 and is recognized for his research on debt management networks and resource allocation under ambiguity. He received a B.S. in economics from Auburn University (1969), an MPA from Auburn University at Montgomery (1974), and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Georgia (1979). He held faculty rank at the University of Kansas (1979-1984), Rutgers University-Newark (1984-2007), and Arizona State University (2008-2017). Additionally, he was a public finance investment banker (1983-1984) and the Fulbright Visiting Chair at the University of Ottawa in Canada (2007). In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, his books include Budget Management (1983), Government Financial Management Theory (1991) Handbook of Debt Management (1996), Handbook of Research Methods in Public Administration (1998), and Government Budgeting and Financial Management in Practice: Logics to Make Sense of Ambiguity (2011). For his influential book review essay on “What is Financial Management?” in Public Administration Review, he received ASPA’s Burchfield Award (1994).
2010 – Dennis S. Ippolito
Dennis S. Ippolito, the Eugene McElvaney Professor of Political Science at Southern Methodist University, focuses on national political institutions and federal budget policy. He received a B.A. in history and government from Adelphi University (1964), and both the M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967) in government from the University of Virginia. He held faculty rank at the University of Virginia (1967-1968) and Emory University (1968-1982) including chair of political science (1971-1977) before joining Southern Methodist University (1982-present) where he has served as departmental chair for several terms. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, his influential books include The Budget and National Politics (1978), Congressional Spending (1981), Hidden Spending (1984), Uncertain Legacies (1990), Blunting the Sword (1994), Why Budgets Matter (2003; 2015), Deficits, Debt, and the New Politics of Tax Policy (2012) and Deficit Politics in the United States (2022). He is the recipient of research grants from the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Twentieth Century Fund, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.
2009 – William D. Duncombe
William ‘Bill’ D. Duncombe [June 11, 1956 – May 11, 2013], professor of public administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, had an international reputation in school finance and public budgeting and finance. He received the B.A. from the University of Washington, and the MPA (1987) and Ph.D. (1987) both from Syracuse, before a brief faculty position at the University of Georgia (1989-1991) before returning to Syracuse as a faculty member (1991-2013). A prodigious scholarly publishing record significantly influenced education finance highlighted by the requested involvement of his data-driven approach to contentious school finance reform in California, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, and Texas, and the City of St. Louis. His professional recognitions include editor of Public Budgeting & Finance (2011-1013), elected NAPA fellow (2010), and recipient of the National Tax Journal’s Musgrave Award for best article (2011). Known for his commitment to helping doctoral students achieve research success, his recognitions include Syracuse University’s Excellence in Graduate Education Award (2006) and NASPA’s Whittington Teaching Award (2006). NASPA honors his legacy with the Duncombe Excellence in Doctoral Education Award.
2008 – W. Bartley Hildreth
William Bartley Hildreth is professor emeritus in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University (2009-2021) with a focus on state and local finance and municipal securities. He received a B.A. from the University of Alabama (1971), an MPA from Auburn University at Montgomery (1974), and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (1979). He held tenure in the business schools of Kent State University (1979-1985), Louisiana State University (1985-1994), and Wichita State University as the Regents Distinguished Professor (1994-2009) before joining GSU’s policy school. He was director of finance of Akron, Ohio (1984-1985), Executive Director of the National Tax Association (2015-2016), a public member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (2012-2015), and editor of the Municipal Finance Journal (1989-2023). He is a NAPA fellow (2005), was the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s municipal securities academic expert to China (2002) and received the 2017 Industry Award from the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, ABFM’s Posner Award (2023) and a Fulbright (2005). In addition to numerous articles, his books include the Public Budgeting Laboratory (1996), the Handbook on Taxation (1999), and Budgeting: Politics and Power (2011).
2007 – Lance LeLoup
Lance Theodore LeLoup, [1949-July 23, 2009] was vice provost and Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of political science at Washington State University and one of the most recognized scholars of budgeting. His thirteen books and more than fifty articles showcase a scholar of budgetary politics focusing on institutions and policy. He received his bachelor’s from Georgetown University (1970) and his Master’s and Ph.D. from Ohio State University (1973). After working with the Ohio State Senate, he joined the political science faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (1974-1996), serving as departmental chairman and director of the public policy research center, before joining the Washington State University political science faculty as department chair (1996-2001) where he held distinguished professorships including Regents Professor until retirement (2000-2009). His books include The Fiscal Congress (1980), Budgetary Politics (1986), The President and Congress (2002), Parties, Rules, and the Evolution of Congressional Budgeting (2005), and Comparative Public Budgeting (2010). He held visiting positions at the University of Bordeaux-Montesquieu, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, L’Université Catholique de l’Ouest, Angers, France, and Hungary’s Budapest University.
2006 – Glenn Fisher
Glenn Fisher [October 24, 1919 – May 18, 2006] was Regents Professor Emeritus, Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, Wichita State University. He published the initial determinants study of state and local expenditures (1964) which was tied for the fifth most cited article in the first 50 years of the National Tax Journal, and became a leading authority on the property tax culminating in his book, The Worse Tax? A History of the Property Tax in America (1996). He received a B.A. from the University of Iowa (1948), an M.A. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (1950), and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin (1954). He joined the economics faculty at North Dakota State (1954-1961) and then a professor of political science at the University of Illinois (1961-1970), before joining the Wichita State University faculty in 1970 as its first Regents Professor (1970-1993). He served on major state tax groups in Minnesota, North Dakota, Illinois, and Kansas. In Kansas, he served on the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group and the Civil Service Board and wrote numerous publications on state and local finance. He was one of only three honorary members of the International Association of Assessing Officers (1989). As a WWII Purple Heart recipient, he wrote Mine is Not the Reason Why – The Story of a One-Eyed Soldier (2002).
2005 – Fred Thompson
Fred Thompson, Goudy Professor of Public Management and Policy Analysis, Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University, is recognized for his rigorous management and policy analysis applied to public finance issues. He received a B.A. in economics and history from Pomona College (1964) and a Ph.D. in economics and history from the Claremont Graduate School (1972). He was employed by the University of California Davis (1973-1975) and held faculty rank at the University of British Columbia (1976-1978), Columbia University (1981-1985), and Willamette University (1985-2015 emeritus), as well as visiting positions at UCLA (1979-1981), Aomori Public College, Japan (1996 and 2001), and London School of Economics (2007-2008). Additionally, he held positions with the California Department of Finance (1971-1975), the California Postsecondary Education Commission (1975-1976), and the Economic Council of Canada (1978-1979). A prolific scholar, his books include the Handbook of Public Finance (1998) and Reinventing the Pentagon (1994). Recognitions include the Burkhead Award for best article in Public Budgeting & Finance (2017), elected NAPA fellow (2011), NASPAA/ASPA distinguished research award (2000), ASPA’s Mosher award (1994), and ABFM president (1998-1999). Extensive consulting in several states and multiple countries showcases his international reputation.
2004 – Bob Lee
Robert D. Lee, Jr., Professor of public administration and professor of hotel, restaurant, and recreation management, and associate director/department head/director of those programs, Pennsylvania State University (1966-2003). He made extensive scholarly contributions to state budgeting and program budgeting systems in state and local governments. He received a B.A. from Wayne State University (1960), an M.A. (1963), and a Ph.D. (1967) both from Syracuse University. As an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University with the Institute of Public Administration, he assisted that state in installing a Planning-Program-Budgeting system (1969). The author of numerous journal articles, he also published the widely used textbook, Public Budgeting Systems (co-author: 1973; tenth edition, 2021), and Public Personnel Systems (1979; third edition, 1993). He was the ABFM Chair for 1996-1997. After retirement, he has held numerous volunteer roles and received volunteer service awards from the American Red Cross (2008, 2015), the Valley Area Agency on Aging in Michigan (2016), and the Michigan Medicare Assistance Program (2023).
2003 – Helen Ladd
Helen Ladd, Professor, Duke University, Sanford School of Public Policy, began her career examining fiscal disparities and the fiscal crisis of U.S. cities and then focused her research on school accountability, school choice, and the economics of education. Significant books include America’s Ailing Cities (1989) and When Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale (2001). She received her B.A. from Wellesley College (1967), master’s from the London School of Economics (1968), and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard (1974). She taught at Wellesley College (1974-1977), Harvard (1978-1986), and beginning in 1986 at Duke in public policy and economics until professor emerita status (2017). She has had numerous national and international affiliations with academic and research organizations, including the Brookings Institution and three Fulbright grants for foreign research. She has served as President of the National Tax Association (1993) and the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management (2011). She holds the Steve Gold Award from NTA/APPAM (2002) and was elected to the National Academy of Education (2011).
2002 – John Mikesell
John Mikesell [October 23, 1942- September 12, 2019], Chancellor’s Professor, Indiana University, Paul H. O’Neill School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, was an expert in governmental finance, specializing in sales and property tax policy and public budgeting systems. He received his B.A. from Wabash College (1964) and both his M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in economics from the University of Illinois-Urbana. He was the co-editor (1989-1994) and then editor (1997-2011) of Public Budgeting & Finance. He served on the Indiana State Revenue Forecast Technical Committee, on several state tax studies, on missions for the World Bank, as the Chief Fiscal Economist assisting the Ukraine Ministry of Finance (1995), and as resident director on the fiscal reform mission in the Russian Federation (1998-1999). In addition to multiple articles almost yearly, he wrote the widely adopted textbook, Fiscal Administration (1984 to tenth edition in 2018; co-author for the 11th Edition) and, with his former major professor, Sales Taxation: State and Local Structure and Administration (1983). His recognitions include election as ABFM President (1992) and he received the Gold Award from NTA/APPAM (2015) and the Sagamore of the Wabash (2016).
2001 – William Niskanen
William Arthur ‘Bill’ Niskanen [March 13, 1833 – October 26, 2011], a political economist, was Chairman of the Cato Institute. He is known for his theory of the budget-maximizing bureaucrat and public choice theory that powered an influential career advising policy leaders and publishing on contemporary policy and governance issues. His classic work is Bureaucracy and Representative Government (1971) which led to other books, such as Reaganomics (1988), and numerous scholarly articles and commentaries. He received his B.A. from Harvard (1954), and his M.A. (1955) and Ph.D. (1962) in economics from the University of Chicago. His career path included work as a defense analyst at the Rand Institute (1957), director of special studies at the Department of Defense as one of the ‘whiz kids’, the Institute for Defense Analysis (1964-1972), assistant director of OMB (1972), professor at the University of California at Berkeley (1972-1975), chief economist at Ford Motor Company (1975-1980), member of the Council of Economic Advisors (1980-1985), and then his long career at the Cato Institute (1985-2011) from which he retired as chairman emeritus.
2000 – Irene S. Rubin
Irene S. Rubin, Professor, Northern Illinois University, is a budget scholar who looked beyond the numbers to what they mean in context to those who prepare them. She earned a B.A. from Barnard (1967), an M.A. from Harvard (1969), and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago (1977). Her academic career included Lewis University (1976-1979), the Institute for Urban Studies at the University of Maryland (1980-1981), and Northern Illinois University (1981-2004) in public administration. A prolific author with widely cited articles, among her books are Running in the Red (1982), Shrinking the Federal Government (1985), Tax, Class, and Power: Municipal Budgeting in the United States (1998), Politics of Public Budgeting (1992, now in its ninth edition), and Balancing the Federal Government (2003). She served as the editor of Public Budgeting & Finance (1995-1996) and Public Administration Review (1996-1999). Among her recognitions are the Mosher Award (ASPA, 1988), the Kaufman Award (APSA, 1993), the Levine Award (ASPA/NASPAA, 1994), the Blum Award (AABPA, 1996), and a Woodrow Wilson Center fellowship (1996).
1999 – Gloria A. Grizzle
Gloria A. Grizzle, [April 10, 1940-June 4, 2020] Professor, Florida State University, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University. She co-authored with S. Kenneth Howard, Whatever Happened to State Budgeting (1972). Her influential framework of budget format-deliberation-allocation (1986) powered studies of budget makers, information, and budget reform. Her circulated textbook, Public Financial Management, showed others how to help managers obtain and use financial information. After graduating with a B.B.A. and valedictorian at the University of Miami (1963), she received both the MPA (1969) and Ph.D. in political science (1973) at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Her positions in performance measurement and evaluation were with the Miami-Dade County Chamber of Commerce (1963-1966), the County Manager’s office at Metropolitan Dade County (1966-1969), the UNC Institute of Government (1969-1974), and the budget office of the State of North Carolina (1974-1978). After joining the FSU faculty in 1978, she served as director of the Askew School (1992-1995) and director of the Florida Public Affairs Center (1994-1997).
1998 – Tom Lauth
Tomas P. Lauth, [April 27, 1938- May 13, 2023], a state budget scholar, was professor (1981-2013), chair of the political science department (1988-2001), and founding dean (2001-2013) of the School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Georgia. He received a B.A. from Notre Dame (1960) and a Ph.D. at Syracuse University (1976). His career included working on a multi-city education study funded by the Carnegie Corporation (1964-1966), as instructor and associate dean at Hofstra University (1966-1974), associate professor of political science at Georgia State University (1975-1981), before joining the University of Georgia faculty in 1981 where he chaired 30 dissertations and taught in its study abroad program in Italy (1998-2001). His 1978 article on zero-based budgeting started a life-long interest in and advising officials on Georgia budgeting that culminated in his capstone project, Public Budgeting in Georgia (2021). In addition to numerous articles, his books include The Politics of State and City Administration (1986) and Budgeting in the States (2006). He received the Pugliese award (1998), was a NAPA fellow (2000), and NASPA president (2000-2001). At UGA, he delivered UGA’s 100th anniversary Graduate Commencement address (2001) and received the President’s Medal (2020).
1997 – Roy W. Bahl
Roy W. Bahl, Jr. is Regents Professor and founding dean emeritus of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University and is known for his work on fiscal decentralization around the world. His B.A. is from Greenville College (1961) and his M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1965) in economics are both from the University of Kentucky. He taught at the University of West Virginia (1965-1967), was a state and local finance economist at the IMF (1968-1971), and then director of the Metropolitan Studies Program and Maxwell Professor of Political Economy at Syracuse University (1971-1988) before joining GSU (1988). His fiscal decentralization fieldwork has received support from the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, the UN, the World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He headed tax reform groups in Georgia (1994) and Ohio (1994), and in Jamaica and Guatemala. In New York, he advised the mayor and governor on NYC’s fiscal outlook and helped Standard & Poor’s develop its state and local rating system. His numerous articles and books include the influential Financing State and Local Government in the 1980s (1984) and Urban Public Finance in Developing Countries (1992). He was President (1985) of the National Tax Association and received its 2005 Holland Medal. He was the first to receive both the ABFM Howard and Wildavsky Awards.
1996 – Richard F. Fenno Jr.
Richard F. Fenno Jr. [December 12, 1926-April 21, 2020] was a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Rochester and the premier scholar on Congress for his extensive analytical writings by observing budgeting and Congressional behavior. He received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College (1948) and his Ph.D. in political science at Harvard (1956), then taught at Wheaton College and Amherst College before joining the University of Rochester (1957-2003). His pathbreaking books include The Power of the Purse (1966), Home Style: House Members in their Districts (1978) winner of ASPA’s Wilson Award (1979) and the Hardeman Prize (1980), and Congress at the Grassroots (2001) which won APSA’s V.O. Key award. He was the book review editor of the American Political Science Review (1968–1971). Recognitions include APSA’s Goodnow Award (2000), a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1983), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1974), APSA President (1984–1985), an elected member of the American Philosophical Society (1989), and a director of the Social Science Research Council.
1995 – Louis Fisher
Louis Fisher is an authority on executive spending discretion and Congress who spent his career at the Library of Congress. He received a B.S. in chemistry from the College of William and Mary (1956), and both an M.A. (1966) and a Ph.D. (1967) in political science from the New School for Social Research. He taught at Queens College (1967-1970) before joining the Library of Congress (1970-2010) where he authored numerous reports and gave invited testimony to Congress over 50 times. His books include President and Congress (1972), Presidential Spending Power (1975), Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President (1985, in 3rd edition), Constitutional Dialogues (1988), Presidential War Power (1995, in 3rd edition), and Military Tribunals & Presidential Power (2005). His awards and recognitions include NAPA’s Brownlow Book Award (1976; 1989); APSA’s Neustadt Book Award (2006); the Dartmouth Medal (1995), APSA’s Hubert Humphrey Award (2012); AABPA’s Blum Award (1982), and an elected NAPA Fellow (1992). He taught part-time at several prominent universities including Georgetown University and American University and the law schools of Catholic University and William and Mary. He continues as a Scholar in Residence at the Library of Congress.
1994 – Allen Shick
Allen Schick is one of the world’s foremost experts on budget policy as a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland (1981-2019) before retiring as distinguished professor emeritus. His work on the stages of budget reform (1966) and subsequent publications influenced the understanding of public budgeting internationally. He graduated from Brooklyn College with a B.A. (1956) and received his M.A. (1959) and Ph.D. (1966) in political science at Yale University. He taught at Tufts University (1961-1968) and George Mason University (1994) and held research positions at the Brookings Institution (1968-1972), Congressional Research Service (1972-1981), the Urban Institute (1977-1978), and the American Enterprise Institute (1984-1985). As founding editor of Public Budgeting and Finance (1981-1983), he influenced an entire field. His books include Congress and Money (1982, winner of the Hardeman Prize), Budget Innovation in the States (1972), Spending, Taxing, and Budgeting (1987), The Capacity to Budget (1990), and The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process (1995). Other awards of recognition include ASPA’s Waldo Prize (1989), Brownlow Award (1973, 1977, 1979), and Mosher Award (1967), as well as APSA’s Merriam Award (1999), AAPPA’s first Blum Award (1977), NAPA fellow (1973), and Guggenheim fellowship (1988).
1993 – Naomi Caiden
Naomi Joy Caiden is a comparative budgeting scholar in the political science department at California State University-Los Angeles where she is now professor emeritus (2010). She coauthored with Aaron Wildavsky, Planning and Budgeting in Poor Countries (1980) followed from 1978 to 1987 by a series of six important articles in Public Administration Review. Other books include revised editions of Wildavsky’s The New Politics of the Budgetary Process (1997) and her book, Public Budgeting and Financial Administration in Developing Countries (1996) which won the Wildavsky best book award from the Policy Studies Organization [PSO]. She was an instructor at the University of Southern California, the University of California campuses at Irvin and Riverside, and at California State University, San Bernardino including chairwoman of the department of public administration. She completed her bachelor’s from the University of London, her M.A. at the Australian National University (1966), and her Ph.D. dissertation on the patterns of budgeting in France (1978) at the University of Southern California which was financed by the Twentieth Century Fund. She was co-editor of Public Budgeting & Finance (1989-1994) and book review editor of Public Administration Review (2005-2009). She received the 1997 Thomas R. Dye Service Award from PSO and AAPBA’s Distinguished Service ‘Blum’ Award (1981 and 1991).
S. Kenneth Howard Award
The S. Kenneth Howard Award was established in 1986 in memory of S. Kenneth Howard to honor lifetime achievement by a practitioner in the field of budgeting and financial management. Dr. Howard was a faculty member at UNC Chapel Hill and held a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Government. Dr. Howard also played a key role in establishing the University’s Master of Public Administration degree program at UNC.
S. Kenneth Howard Award Winners
2024 – Shayne Kavanagh
Shayne Kavanagh is senior manager of research for the Government Finance Officers Association (2001-present) and a leader in advancing the state of the practice in public finance. He received a BA in political science (1997) and an MPA degree (1999) from Northern Illinois University. Prior to joining GFOA, he was the Assistant Village Manager for the Village of Palos Park, IL (1997-2001). His GFOA publications include Financial Foundations for Thriving Communities (2019), Informed Decision-Making through Forecasting (2016), Financial Policies (2012), Recovery from Financial Distress (2010), and Financing the Future (2007). He manages current projects on ‘Rethinking Revenue’ and ‘Rethinking Budgeting’ and ‘Rethinking Financial Reporting.’ He is a NAPA Fellow (2022).
2023 – Lloyd Blanchard
Lloyd Blanchard is Associate Vice President of Budget, Management, and Institutional Research in the Office of Provost, University of Connecticut. (2023-present) and Commissioner of the New England Commission on Higher Education (2021-present). He has been an associate director of OMB (2001-2002), chief operating officer of the Small Business Administration (2002-2003), deputy chief financial officer of NASA (2003-2004), and an academic executive at Louisiana State University (2007-2009) and the City University New York (2010-2011). His B.A. in political science is from the University of Texas at San Antonio (1993) and his MPA and PhD in public administration from Syracuse University (1999). He has been on the faculty of the University of Washington (1999-2001), Syracuse University (2004-2006), and the University of Connecticut (2016-2023).
2022 – Chris Morrill
Chris Morrill is the Executive Director/CEO of the Government Finance Officers Association of the U.S. and Canada (2017-present) where he served as President (2012-2013). Previously, he served as city manager of Roanoke, VA (2010-2017), Assistant City Manager and Budget Director of Savannah, GA (1988-1992; 1994-2010), budget analyst for Catawba County, NC (1986-1988), and downtown project manager for Lynn, MA (1984-1985). He is an ICMA Credentialed Manager, a NAPA fellow (2018), and a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Soviet Union (1992-1994). He holds a B.A. from the College of Holy Cross (1984) and an MPA from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1987).
2021 – Edward A. Lehan
Edward Anthony Lehan career in public budgeting spans nearly 60 years. He began his career as a budget supervisor and later effectively CAO in Hartford, CT (1963-1972), National Science Foundation (1972-1973), town manager, North Kingstown (1973-1974), finance director, Cambridge, MA (1974-1978), finance director, Rochester, NY (1978-1979), CAO, New Haven, CT (1980), and finance director, West Hartford, CT (1984-1985). As a consultant since then, he worked on projects for numerous domestic and foreign governments. He received his BA at Hillyer College (1953) and the MA in government at the University of Connecticut (1953). He authored Simplified Governmental Budgeting (1981) and received the 1996 Jesse Burkhead Award for best article in Public Budgeting & Finance. He taught at the University of Connecticut, the University of Rhode Island, Boston University, and Northeastern University.
F. Stevens Redburn has over 25 years of experience as a senior government executive. He received a B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University (1966) and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1970). After serving as a professor and director of the Center for Urban Studies at Youngstown State University (1970-1980), he became a research analyst in policy development at HUD (1979-1986) before joining OMB as a senior economist (1986-1993) and eventually chief of the OMB housing branch (1993-2006). He then served as project director for NAPA (2006-2008), the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform (2010-2011), and the National Academy of Sciences (2008-2014). Upon return to academia, he directed studies for the Center on the Public Service at George Mason University (2014-2017) and a professorial lecturer at George Washington University (2004-present). He is the co-author of four books, co-editor of five books, and numerous articles. He is a NAPA Fellow (2002).
2019 – Dwight Dively
Dwight Dively is Budget Director of King County where he is responsible for developing and monitoring the biennial King County budget, implementing the King County Strategic Plan, identifying and tracking performance measures, developing and implementing the King County Comprehensive Plan, overseeing business planning, and conducting the annual employee survey. Prior to King County, Dwight had a 22-year career with the City of Seattle, culminating as Director of Finance and leading the city’s financial and budget management initiatives between 1994 and 2010. He has served as a Distinguished Practitioner on the teaching faculty for over 30 years at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. He is co-author of Benefit-Cost Analysis in Theory and Practice (1994). He holds a B.S. from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (1980), an MPA from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington.
Lori Raineri is a registered Municipal Advisor and founded Government Financial Strategies, Inc. (1988-present), an independent public finance advisor firm. Based in California, she is also CEO of the Government Financial Services Joint Powers Authority. As a certified fraud examiner, she provides training and performs fraud examinations related to public finance. She received her B.A. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley (1983) and her M.S. in financial analysis from the University of San Francisco (2012) and started her career as an investment banker. She has authored more than two dozen articles and publications and is in high demand as a public speaker.
2016 – John Rohrer
John Rohrer served for 37 years with Maryland’s nonpartisan legislative services agency, most significantly for 20 years as coordinator of fiscal policy analysis in the Office of Policy Analysis, Department of Legislative Services. He started his career evaluating public school funding. He helped build the state of Maryland’s legislative budget forecasting system and helped develop data systems for compiling, reporting, and assessing local financial capacity and fiscal health. He received his Master’s in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland – College Park prior to joining the legislative services agency. In 2015, the National Conference of State Legislatures awarded him the Legislative Staff Achievement Award.
2015 – John Culpepper
John Culpepper began his career in local government in 1975 as a staff member of the Oconee Area Planning and Development Commission in Georgia. He served as the Clerk and Treasurer of the City of Milledgeville, Georgia (1978-1983). Then in 1983, he moved to Athens, Georgia to serve as the Finance Director of Clarke County. In 1991, the City of Athens and Clarke County consolidated and Culpepper served as the Finance Director for Athens-Clarke County until his retirement in 2014. For over 20 years he has served as an instructor on financial management for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia. He received his AB in Political Science from the University of Georgia (1972), his MPA from the University of Georgia (1975), and his MBA from Brenau University (2000).
2014 – Elizabeth (Liz) Hill
Elizabeth (Liz) G. Hill was the first woman to head the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (1986-2008), one of the most important positions in that state’s government as a nonpartisan fiscal advisor to both houses of the California Legislature with a staff of over 50. She joined the LAO as a program analyst in 1976. She earned degrees from Stanford in human biology (1973) and a master’s degree in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley (1975), as well as a Fulbright Scholar in Sweden. In 1997, she was recognized as a ‘Public Official of the Year’ by Governing magazine, elected as a 1998 Fellow to NAPA, and in 2005 the recipient of the National Public Service Award from the American Society of Public Administration. In 2011, she became a board member of the California Health Care Foundation.
2013 – Jon R. Blondal
Jón R. Blöndal is the Head of the Public Management and Budgeting Division, Public Governance Directorate, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He leads a team of expert practitioners to assist countries improve their public sector’s performance. Guided by good governance principles and sustainable fiscal objectives, the Division assists countries to achieve policy goals through arrangements that allocate budgets to priority areas. It supports the OECD Committee of Senior Budget Officials (SBO) and the OECD Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting. He is co-chair of the Public Interest Committee, the oversight body for the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB). He is Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly OECD Journal on Budgeting and is co-author of Modern Budgeting (1998). Prior to joining the OECD in 1995, Mr. Blöndal held a number of positions in the Ministry of Finance and Office of the Prime Minister in Iceland. He received his degree from George Washington University.
2012 – Roy W. Bahl
Roy W. Bahl, Jr. is Regents Professor and founding dean emeritus of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University and is known for his work on fiscal decentralization around the world. His B.A. is from Greenville College (1961) and his M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1965) in economics are both from the University of Kentucky. He taught at the University of West Virginia (1965-1967), was a state and local finance economist at the IMF (1968-1971), and then director of the Metropolitan Studies Program and Maxwell Professor of Political Economy at Syracuse University (1971-1988) before joining GSU (1988). His fiscal decentralization fieldwork has received support from the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, the UN, the World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He headed tax reform groups in Georgia (1994) and Ohio (1994), and in Jamaica and Guatemala. In New York, he advised the mayor and governor on NYC’s fiscal outlook and helped Standard & Poor’s develop its state and local rating system. His numerous articles and books include the seminal Financing State and Local Government in the 1980s (1984) and Urban Public Finance in Developing Countries (1992). He was President (1985) of the National Tax Association and received its 2005 Holland Medal. He was the first to receive both the ABFM Howard and Wildavsky Awards.
2011 – John E. Petersen
John Earle Petersen [5 May 1940 – 4 April 2012], after a career that established him as “the dean of municipal finance,” taught public policy at Georgie Mason University (2002-2012). With a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University (1962) and the MBA (1964) and Ph.D. in economics (1968), both from the University of Pennsylvania, his career progressed from the Federal Reserve Board (1968-1970), the Securities Industry Association (1970-1973), and the National Governors Association (1976-1977) to director of the Government Finance Research Center at the Government Finance Officers Association (1973-1976; 1977-1991), and then to establish a financial advisory firm (Government Finance Group, 1992-2002). He was elected to the Fairfax City Council in 1972 for one term and was a public member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (2011-2012). His publications around the NYC financial crisis include The Rating Game (1974), Building a Broader Market (1976), and Disclosure Guidelines for State and Local Government Securities (1976 and four revisions), followed by many other works such as Subnational Capital Markets in Developing Countries (2004).
2010 – James A. Richardson
James A. Richardson was Alumni professor of economics and director of the Public Administration Institute at LSU (1970-2011 emeritus). He received his B.S. at St. Mary’s University of Texas (1966) and his M.A. (1970) and PhD (1971) in economics at the University of Michigan. He served on the Louisiana Revenue Estimating Conference (1987-2019), a four-member panel of elected officials and one independent, professional member, that gave him an implicit veto since the group’s official revenue estimates used by the state budget required a unanimous vote. Additionally, each year he co-authored the ‘Louisiana Economic Outlook’ (since 1985) and a validation report on the revenue estimates in the annual budget of the City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge. He served as a director of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana and as a trustee of the Council for a Better Louisiana. He co-edited the Handbook on Taxation (1999) and was the editor of Louisiana’s Fiscal Alternatives (1988) which was the culmination of one of his state tax reform task forces.
2009 – Paul Posner
Paul Posner [1947 – July 5, 2017] served for 30 years with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, where he achieved leadership positions. He authored The Politics of Unfunded Mandates (1998) which received the 2008 Martha Derthick Best Book Award given by Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Management of the American Political Science Association, from which he received their Daniel J. Elazar Distinguished Scholar award (2017). He received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and worked for the New York City budget bureau. He was a former president of the ASPA (2010-2011), ABFM (2000-2001), and Chair of the Board of the NAPA (2016-2017). He joined George Mason University in 2005 and was director of the MPA program in the Schar School of Policy and Government until his death. He received ABFM’s Wildavsky Award (2017) and the Posner Award was named in his honor.
2008 – David M. Walker
David M. Walker was the seventh Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (1998-2008). He left GAO to be President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (2008-2010) to champion federal government fiscal responsibility. He received his B.S. in accounting from Jacksonville University and is a CPA. He worked with several leading accounting firms, including partner and global managing director of Arthur Andersen, LLP (1989-1998). He served as Acting Executive Director, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (1984-1985), Assistant Secretary for pension and welfare benefit programs at the U.S. Department of Labor (1987-1989), and Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds (1990-1995).
2007 – Merl Hackbart
Merl Hackbart is professor emeritus of finance and public administration at the Martin School at the University of Kentucky. With a B.S. in agricultural economics from South Dakota State University (1963) and a Ph.D. in economics from Kansas State University (1968), he held a faculty position at the University of Wyoming (1968-1972) before serving as South Dakota’s Director of Economic Analysis for the Planning Office (1972) and deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation (1973). In 1973, he joined the University of Kentucky as Director of the Center for Public Affairs and continued as director when it became the Martin School for Public Administration (1973-1982; 2012-2016), and board member of the Henry Clay Center. With a dual appointment with the business school, he served there as associate dean (2005-2011) and Interim Dean (2011-2012). For the Commonwealth of Kentucky, he served as a member of the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education and the Kentucky Consensus Revenue Forecasting Group, as well as Budget Director (1982-1983; 1989-1991) and as Senior Policy Advisor to the Governor (1998-2002), and on the Kentucky Public Pensions Authority (2021-2025). He is a past President of the ABFM (1999-2000) and recipient of the 2020 Aaron Wildavsky Award for lifetime scholarly achievement in the field of public budgeting and finance.
2006 – Robert Kilpatrick
Robert Wylie Kilpatrick [1936 – 13 October 2005], was awarded posthumously as a fiscal economist with OMB. He received a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College (1957), a master’s (1958) and a doctorate in economics (1965), both from Yale University. While teaching at Cornell (1962-1971), he chaired 19 dissertations. After joining OMB in 1971, he served as a Fiscal Economist in the Budget Review Division working on budget concepts, capital budgeting, and federal accounting standards. His expertise led to work with other agencies, including CBO, the International Monetary Fund, and the OECD. His research was published in the Journal of Political Economy (1968) and The Review of Economics and Statistics (1967; 1973).
2005 – Hank Huckaby
Henry M. ‘Hank’ Huckaby [13 Dec 1941 – 14 April 2021] was a lifelong public servant with the State of Georgia with increasing fiscal and managerial responsibility for over 50 years, including the administrations of four governors. He received his B.A. in political science and an M.B.A. from Georgia State University. He started his career as a budget analyst (1973-1975), before serving as director of the Senate Research Office (1975-1977), commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs (1977-1980), executive director of the Georgia Residential Finance Authority (1980-1991) and state budget director (1991-1995). He was an administrator at Gordon College, Georgia State University (1995-1997), and the University of Georgia (1997-2000) before his appointment to UGA as senior vice president for finance and administration (2000-2006). This appointment caused him to decline serving as the elected ABFM chair-elect (1999). Earlier in his career, he taught at Georgia Perimeter College and Emory University. He was an elected member of the Georgia House of Representatives for six months in 2011 before he took office as chancellor of the University System (2011-2016).
2004 – Marvin Phaup
Marvin Phaup excelled as a senior leader at the Congressional Budget Office for over 30 years, with principal responsibility for many reports. He received a B.A. from Roanoke College (1962), an M.A. (1964) and a Ph.D. in economics (1966) from the University of Virginia after receiving a Fulbright fellowship to Norway (1964-1965). He held positions as an assistant professor at Roanoke College (1965-1967), an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (1969-1976), and increasingly senior positions at the CBO (1976 -2007) ending as Deputy Assistant Director, Financial Studies Group (2004-2007). Later he served as a consultant to the OECD, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the International Monetary Fund. He has held research scholar and lecturer positions at the George Washington University and published in Public Budgeting & Finance and other journals. His recognitions include election as a 2015 Fellow of NAPA, serving on the board of PFP, Inc., and receiving AABPA’s Blum Award (1995).
2003 – A. John Vogt
A. John Vogt retired in 1973 as a professor of public finance and government at the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining UNC in 1973, he was budget operations coordinator for the Wisconsin State Budget Office and research associate for the Center for Studies in Education and Development at Harvard University. Vogt is the author of Capital Improvement Programming: A Handbook for Local Government Officials, and Capital Budgeting and Finance: A Guide for Local Governments (2004). In 2006, the North Carolina Local Government Budget Association created an award in Jack Vogt’s name to be given annually for excellence in local budgeting in the state. Vogt earned a BS from Georgetown University, an MPIA from the University of Pittsburgh, and a PhD from Cornell University.
2002 – G. Edward DeSeve
Germain Edward DeSeve has served at all three levels of government and in the private sector. At the federal level, he was a Special Advisor to the President to implement the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009-2011). He was also Deputy Director for Management and Controller at OMB and Chief Financial Officer of HUD (1993). At the state and local levels, he was a Special Assistant to the Governor of Pennsylvania (1990) and Director of Finance for Philadelphia (1980-1983). In the private sector, he was a managing director at Merrill Lynch Capital Markets (1983) and founded Public Financial Management (1975-1979). He served as a tenured professor of public management and finance at the University of Maryland and was a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. DeSeve is the author of The Presidential Appointee’s Handbook (2009). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University (1967) and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1971). He is a 1995 Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Currently, he is the Coordinator of the Agile Government Center at NAPA and an Executive Visiting Fellow at the IBM Center for The Business of Government.
2001 – Martin Ives
Martin Ives had a distinguished career in state and local government financial management, including more than 30 years as Deputy Controller of New York State and First Deputy Controller of New York City during the 1970s, and later Vice Chairman and Director of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (1984-1994) and member of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (1991-1997). He is a CPA (inactive) and holds an MBA. He is a coauthor for several editions of Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Organizations (2019), author of Financial Condition Analysis and Management (2000), and numerous professional articles. He has served as an adjunct at Pace University and for over 16 years at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service where he has been voted Adjunct of the Year.
2000 – Richard Keevey
Richard Keevey held senior positions in the New Jersey state government and in two federal agencies. He is a former budget director and comptroller for New Jersey (1983-1994), having been appointed by two governors. He was CFO for HUD (1997-1999) after serving as Deputy Under Secretary for Finance for the US Dept. of Defense (1994-1995) and Director of the Defense Finance and Accounting Agency (1995-1997). He received the DOD Medal for Distinguished Service and its Medal for Outstanding Service. He was the practice director for Arthur Anderson and Unisys Corporation. As a 2007 Fellow at NAPA, he directed the performance management consortium (2004-2007). He served as Director of Policy Research for the Region at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton (2007-2010) and held visiting professor status there and as Executive in Residence at the Bloustein School of Planning and Policy, Rutgers University. Keevey holds a bachelors in political science from La Salle College and an MPA from Wharton Graduate School, University of Pennsylvania.
1999 – Thomas J. Cuny
Thomas J. Cuny received the award for his lifetime achievement in developing the conceptual framework used for budget accounting and analysis in the federal government. He was with OMB for 25 years, first as the fiscal economist for the budget review division, and then as the principal analyst for the budget analyses division. He received two OMB Director’s Awards, first for his work on the conceptual framework (1983) and then for his analysis on the adoption of a federal capital budget (1987). In 1990, he transferred to the Congressional Budget Office as principal analyst in the Budget Concepts and Process group and retired in 1995. His articles in Public Budgeting & Finance were on offsetting collections (1988), federal receipts (1989), federal credit reform (1991), federal accounting (1994), and federal budget concepts (1998).
1998 – Dall Forsythe
Dall Forsythe has extensive management experience in governmental, private, and non-profit sectors, including budget director for NYC Board of Education (1980-1982), Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers (1982-1984), first deputy director of budget and special assistant to the Governor of NY for management and productivity (1985-1988), New York budget director (1988-1991), managing director at Lehman Brothers (1994-1997) and MBIA (1997-1998), Chief Administrative Officer, Episcopal Diocese of NY (2001-2005), and chief financial officer, Atlantic Philanthropies (2010-2012). He served as chair of the board of the Fund for the City of NY, on the board of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, and a public member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (2012-2014; 2015-2017). He authored Memos to the Governor: An Introduction to State Budgeting (2004). He received a bachelor’s degree (1967) and a doctoral degree in political science (1974) from Columbia University. He has taught at Baruch College, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Albany, and the Kennedy School at Harvard. His last teaching assignment was at NYU.
1997 – David Mathieson
David Gregory Mathieson [February 18, 1936 – June 13, 2020] was a top civil servant in OMB. He began his career as a budget analyst in the Bureau of the Budget (1961). He then worked overseas for the Agency for International Development. Back in the U.S. in 1972, he returned to OMB where he became head of the Fiscal Analysis Branch and later Deputy Director of the Office of Budget Review. On leave from OMB in 1998, he served as executive director of the bipartisan National Economic Commission. His last government position was as special assistant to the director of GAO, and then spent two years in Paris at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. AABPA recognized him with the Blum Award (1989). He periodically taught at the Yale School of Management and later at American University and the University of Maryland. He graduated from Oberlin College and received his MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.
1996 – Stanley Collender
Stanley E. Collender [21 Feb 1951 – 3 May 2019] was a professional commentator on the federal budget. Starting in 1974, he was involved in the federal budget process including working for both the House and Senate Budget Committees. He served as the administrator of the Task Force on the Budget of the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition. He authored the annual The Guide to the Federal Budget for 19 years (1982-2001) and wrote a blog as ‘The Budget Guy’. He worked for major consulting firms and international accounting firms. AABPA awarded him the Blum Award (2012). In 1988, the President appointed him to the Presidential Commission on capital budgeting. He wrote columns on the federal budget for several publications including USA Today. He received a BA from NYU (1973) and a master’s degree in public policy from U of California Berkeley (1976), and was a long-standing adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He was elected to the ABFM executive board in 1999.
1995 – Alice Rivlin
Alice Mitchell Rivlin [4 Mar 1931 – 14 May 2019] is the only person to have served as director of both the congressional and executive budget offices. She was OMB director (1994-1996) after serving as the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office (1975-1983) and deputy director of the DHHS (1968-1969). Rivlin received her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College (1952) and after a year in Europe working on the Marshall Plan, earned a Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College of Harvard University (1958). Rivlin finished her dissertation while at the Brookings Institution and spent much of her career alternating between Brookings and various federal policy jobs. Her influential book, Systematic Thinking for Social Action (1971) accelerated a career including election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1973). AABPA recognized her with its Blum Award (1992). She taught as a visiting member of the faculty at the Kennedy School at Harvard and at George Mason University. She served as the 16th vice chair of the Federal Reserve (1996-1999) and chair of the District of Columbia Financial Control Board (1998-2001).
1994 – David L. Manning
David Lee Manning [30 Jan 1950 – 4 Aug 2019] was an influential finance expert in Tennessee. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor’s degree in 1971 and then an MPA in 1973 through the Southern Regional Training Program, he began his career as a state budget analyst (1974) for the State of Tennessee. His later positions included Deputy Treasurer, and Commissioner of Finance and Administration for the State of Tennessee (1987-1995) where he is regarded as the architect of the state’s TennCare program which provides health insurance for low-income families. From 1999-2007, he was director of finance for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County where he was known as “Dr. No”. After those positions, he served as a federal court-appointed Receiver Representative for the Guam Solid Waste Authority and a separate Receiver appointment by the Tennessee Commissioner of Commerce and Insurance.
1993 – Robert Reischauer
Robert Danton Reischauer was Director of the Congressional Budget Office (1989-1995) when he received the Award. He helped the first CBO director set up the organization as deputy director (1977-1981). Before and after his appointment as Director of CBO, Reischauer was a senior fellow in the Economics Studies Program at the Brookings Institute (1986-1989 and 1995-2000). At the Urban Institute, he served as senior vice president (1981-1986) and then President (2000-2012) and is President Emeritus. He received his AB from Harvard (1963), an MA in international affairs (1966) and a PhD in Economics (1971) from Columbia University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the National Academy of Public Administration. He received AABPA’s Blum Award (1994).
1992 – Jesse Verlyn Burkhead
Jesse Verlyn Burkhead [November 20, 1916 – June 24, 1996] was Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Economics, Syracuse University. He earned his undergraduate degree at Carleton College (1938) and a master’s and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin (1942) and was a Littauer fellow in public administration at Harvard University where he earned an MPA (1942). He joined the U.S. Bureau of the Budget as a budget analyst, served as a USAF officer, and started his academic career at Lehigh University (1947-1948) before being appointed as an associate professor at Syracuse in 1949. He was promoted to full professor in 1954, Maxwell Professor in 1965, and taught economics and public administration until he retired in 1985. He served as a tax consultant to the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission (1965) and other appointments. His books include the classic Government Budgeting (1956) as well as Public School Finance: Economics and Politics (1964) and seven others. He wrote over 75 articles and monographs. He served as editor of Public Budgeting & Finance (1982-1988) and the journal recognizes the best article published in each volume with the Jesse Burkhead Award. He received AABPA’s Blum Award (1985).
1991 – Albert Kliman
Albert J. Kliman served as the long-standing budget director of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs. He received both an undergraduate degree (1955) and MPA (1961) from Harvard, and began his federal career in the budget office of the Department of Agriculture in 1957, then joined HUD’s budget department in 1966 and held a number of key positions before becoming its director in 1975 and held it until retirement in 1990. Kliman wrote journal articles on “The Gore Report on Budgeting” (1993) and, for Public Budgeting & Finance (1996), “Confessions of a Dinosaur.” He served as president of AABPA and received both the Meritorious Executive and Distinguished Federal Executive awards from the President during his federal service. After retirement, he was an associate at the Institute for Financial Management at the University of Maryland and a project director and Fellow (2008) of the National Academy of Public Administration.
1990 – Stuart W. Connock
Stuart Wallace Connock – [12 Aug 1925-6 Dec 1925] dominated Virginia government finance during the 1970s and 1980s. After earning a degree in economics from the University of Virginia and performing military service during World War II, he started his career in the Virginia Department of Taxation. In 1960, he was appointed Director of Sales and Use Tax and, in 1973, appointed Tax Commissioner. He was appointed as Assistant Secretary for Financial Policy (Director of Planning and Budget; Secretary of Administration and Finance) under Governor Dalton. In 1984, Governor Robb appointed him as Secretary of Finance and he continued in that role under Governor Baliles until he retired in 1990. Later, he served as Executive Assistant for State Government Relations to the President of the University of Virginia and on the Virginia Supplemental Retirement System. He was president of the National Tax Association in 1988. He was a Lecturer at Virginia Commonwealth University.
1988 – Alair Townsend
Alair Townsend was the first woman to hold the position as New York City’s Budget Director (1982-1985), before becoming Deputy Mayor for Finance and Economic Development (1985-1989) under Mayor Ed Koch. Before her NYC positions, she served in Washington, DC as Associate Director of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget of the U.S. DHHS, and Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Fiscal Policy of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress where she worked on its influential Studies in Public Welfare. She received AABPA’s Blum Award for her work at OMB (1982). After her public service positions, she was Vice President and Publisher of Crain’s New York Business for 18 years, vice-chairman of the financial control board for Buffalo, on the board of TIAA-CREF, and a former governor of the American Stock Exchange. Ms. Townsend is a Phi Beta Kappa sociology graduate of Elmire College and holds a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin (1964).
1987 – Alan Post
August Alan Post [17 Sept. 1914-26 Mar 2011] was California’s Legislative Analyst from 1949-1977 where he monitored the state budgets of five governors from Earl Warren to Jerry Brown as the head of the influential organization that provided the legislature with nonpartisan counsel on fiscal issues. As one writer summed his career, his “success spurred the creation of similar government agencies around the nation, including the widely respected Congressional Budget Office.” Post received his undergraduate degree from Occidental College in economics and art, and completed two years of work on a graduate degree in economics from Princeton University, but left to teach at Occidental and only applied for his master’s degree in 1969. He was a founding director of the Public Policy Institute of California in 1994. The California Journal named him in 2000 as one of California’s 30 most influential public figures of the 20th Century.
1986 – T. Norman Hurd
Thomas Norman Hurd [24 Apr 1910-27 Feb 1999] was New York state budget director under Governors Dewey (1950-1954) and Rockefeller (1958-1971), and director of Operations (1971-1972). Additionally, he was Secretary to Governors Rockefeller (1972) and Wilson (1973-1974). He was special assistant to Vice President Rockefeller, with weekly reports during New York City’s budget crisis. Other state positions included a staff position in the State Senate, on the State Board of Regents (1956-1958), and on the original overseer board to the Institute of Government (1983). In addition to monographs on local government finances in the 1930s, he co-edited Rockefeller in Retrospect: The Governor’s New York Legacy (1984), and Making Experience Count: Managing Modern New York in the Carey Era (1985). He graduated from Michigan State University (1931) and earned a doctorate at Cornell University (1936) where he was professor of agricultural economics (1931-1950).
Michael Curro Award
The Michael Curro Award for best graduate student paper was established to honor Michael Curro. Graduate students who have written outstanding papers in the field as part of a course, independent study, or other faculty supervised project are eligible. Mr. Curro was an active and engaging member of ABFM; serving on the Public Budgeting and Finance editorial board, ABFM’s executive committee, and the board of directors of Public Financial Publications, Inc. He worked for the GAO in a variety of capacities for over 30 years starting in the regional office of his hometown Cincinnati, Ohio in 1974. Mr. Curro often wrote about budget and finance topics in professional journals and taught classes at Georgetown University, USDA Graduate School, and Central Michigan University. Among other accomplishments, Mr. Curro helped shape and implement the Government Performance and Results Act through the General Accounting Office. His body of work on performance budgeting and the federal budget account structure continue to be important documents with a wide audience.
Michael Curro Award Winners
- 2024 – Luis Navarro, Indiana University, “Federal Assistance and Municipal Borrowing: Unpacking the Effects of the CARES Act on Government Liquidity Management.”
- 2023 – Qingqing Sun, University of Maryland, “Are Nonprofits Creditworthy? Financial Determinants of Nonprofit Tax-Exempt Bond Ratings.”
- 2022 – Ruth Winecoft, Indiana University, “The Dodd-Frank Act and Municipal Borrowing Costs: Evidence from Nationwide Data.”
- 2021 – John D. Stavick, Indiana University, “Do State Budget Maneuvers Reduce Future Budget Resiliency? Evidence Following the Great Recession.”
- 2020 – Felipe Lozano Rojas, Indiana University, “How Do Local Government Finances Respond to Opioid Epidemics? Evidence from Hydrocodone Rescheduling.”
- 2019 – Yoon-Jung Choi, Syracuse University, “Property Tax Interaction Among Overlapping Local Jurisdictions: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from School Bond Referenda.”
- 2018 – Sian Mughan, Indiana University, “Budget Deficits and Revenue Extracting Activities in the Criminal Justice System.”
- 2017 – Thomas Luke Spreen, Indiana University, “Bad Medicine? The Effect of Illinois Income Tax Increase on Municipal Borrowing Costs”
- 2016 – Lang (Kate) Yang, Indiana University, “The Impact of State Intervention and Bankruptcy Authorization Laws on Local Government Financial Condition.”
- 2015 – Stephanie Leiser, University of Washington, “The Diffusion of State Business Tax Incentives.”
- 2014 – Jamie Giles, University of Kentucky, Do Municipal Stat Programs Improve Services & Reallocate Resources? Evidence from Louie Stat.”
- 2013 – Jarrad Fjelstad, University of Washington, “Using the Diebold-Li Model to Forecast Municipal Bond Yield Curves.”
- 2012 – Forrest Longman, University of Washington, “Small Town Bond Default and Financial Contagion: Did the Greater Wenatchee Public Facilities District Default Cause Financial Contagion?”
- 2011 – Steven Dana, University of Washington, “Preliminary Investigation of Applied Liquidity Measures to the Municipal Bond Market.”
- 2010 – Whitney B. Afonso, University of Georgia, “State Income Taxes and Military Service Members’ Legal Residency Choices.”
- 2009 – Gao Liu, University of Kentucky, “Do Investors Differentiate among Bond Insurers? Bond Insurers’ Credit Risk and Insured Bond Interest Costs.”
- 2008 – Sarah Arnett, Georgia State University, “Budget Rules and Financial Management Quality: An Empirical Analysis of the U.S. States.”
- 2007 – Robert Nye, University of Kansas, “Total Recall: Did Municipal Bond Investors Anticipate the Effects of California’s Recent Elections?”
- 2006 – Quian (Janey) Wang IV, Indiana University, “An Empirical Analysis of Provincial Tax Performance in China.”
- 2005 – Olha Krupa, Indiana University, “Is There a Reason for Higher Cost Financing?”
- 2004 – Seth Payton, Indiana University, “Property Tax and Local Policy Affect Housing Values.”
- 2003 – Justin Marlowe, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, “Fiscal and Political Determinants of Local Fund Balance Levels.”
- 2002 – Deborah A. Carroll, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, “Conflict of Interests: Poverty, Brownfields and Tax Increment Financing.”
- 2001 – Kyle I. Jen, Michigan State University, “Michigan Tax Expenditures 1990-2000.”
- 2000 – Changhoon Jung, University of Georgia, “Does the Local-Option Sales Tax Provide Tax Relief? The Georgia Case.”
- 1999 – Kara Lindaman, editor on behalf of 12 other class members, University of Kansas, “Budgeting for Neighborhood Realization: Backward and Forward Mapping Performance and Outcomes.”
- 1998 – Mike Gray and Michael West, Willamette University, “Pension Ratio Analysis for Public Employee Retirement Systems.”
- 1997 – Carol McMillan, Wichita State University, “Local Government Debt in Sedgwick County, Kansas, 1985-1995.”
- 1996 – Kevin J. Jackson, University of Missouri at St. Louis, “Tax Increment Financing: An Examination of Theory and Practice.”
- 1995 – Carnegie Mellon University team, Martha Chavez, Deirdre Cheek, Natalie Harder, Carla Hardy, Gwen Moody, Mary Thomas, Yasmin Santiago, and Steffanie Smith, Carnegie Mellon University, “An Analysis of Municipally-Owned Tax Delinquent Properties in Pittsburgh.”
- 1994 – James True, Texas A&M University, “Is the National Budget Controllable?”
- 1993 – Patrick J. Murphy, University of Wisconsin, “The Politics of Budgetary Cross-Cut or Don’t Expect a Peace Dividend in the War on Drugs.”
- 1991 – Willamette Seminar, Willamette University, “Generalized Sales Tax Designs: An Evaluation of Alternatives.”
- 1990 – Brenda D. Eisele (KU Undergrad) and Dennis R.Tuck (Kent State grad), Brenda D. Eisele (University of Kansas, undergraduate student award, “Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Social Equity) and Dennis R. Tuck (Kent State University, graduate student award, “City of Kent, Ohio, Cash Management Strategies”).
- 1989 – Charles Crawford and Linda Gilbert, Willamette University, “Long-Term Growth in K-12 Spending and Private Property Wealth in Oregon: Is There a Mismatch?”
Paul Posner Pracademic Award
The Paul Posner Pracademic Award is presented to honor lifetime achievement for significant contributions made to the field of budgeting and financial management as both a practitioner and an academic. This is not an annual award. It will be made only when an exemplary candidate is nominated and ultimately approved by the Paul Posner Pracademic Award Committee. The award recipient should be an outstanding pracademic (practitioner and scholar) as judged by his or her record of service to and publication in the field over a sustained period of time. Nominations should include a 1-2 page letter outlining the significant accomplishments of the nominee, the nominee’s vitae, and no more than two additional letters of recommendation. A committee will determine the award winner.
The award is named for Paul Posner, the ultimate pracademic. He worked for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for 30 years where he was Managing Director for Strategic Issues. Paul led GAO’s work on the long-term federal budget outlook and emerging challenges for public-sector finances at all levels of government. He was responsible for GAO’s work on performance budgeting and testified numerous times before congressional committees on budget related issues. After retiring from GAO in 2005, Paul became the Director of the George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.
Paul Posner Pracademic Award Winners
2024 – Marilyn Marks Rubin
Marilyn Marks Rubin is a Distinguished Research Fellow in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark (2018-present), with a career that embodies the synergy of doing academics and practice concurrently. With a BA in economics from Rutgers University, and both an MA in economics and a PhD in public administration from New York University (1976), she was an instructor at William Paterson College (1973-1976) before receiving faculty rank at NYU (1976-1980), The New School (1980-1986) and then at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (1987-2018) during which time she was the MPA program director. She was deputy research director of the model cities program in Paterson, NJ (1971-1973), a consultant to the New York City Office of Management and Budget (1980-1984), and, since 1984, a partner in a private consulting firm where she has authored numerous reports on state and local tax policy and urban economic development. Her numerous articles on equity in public services are bolstered by books including Governing in a Global World: Women in Public Service (2017), Sustaining the States (2015), and Public Administration Evolving (2015). She was chair of ABFM (1994) and is a NAPA Fellow (2005) and on its executive council (2022-present).
2023 – Bart Hildreth
William Bartley Hildreth is professor emeritus in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University (2009-2021) with a career devoted to advancing financial management professionalism. With a B.A. from the University of Alabama (1971), a MPA from Auburn University at Montgomery (1974), and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (1979), he held faculty rank at Kent State University (1979-1985), LSU (1985-1994) and Wichita State University as the Regents Distinguished Professor (1994-2009) before joining GSU as Dean (2009-2010). He was director of finance for Akron, Ohio (1984-1985), and Executive Director of the National Tax Association (2015-2016). He was a member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (2012-2015), Kansas Development Finance Authority (1997-2003), Woodrow Wilson International Center’s municipal securities delegation to China (2002), Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council (2002-2003), National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting (1996-1998), and GFOA’s Council on Certification (1996-1999). In Kansas, he was a fiscal advisor to two governors and chair of tax reform groups. He was editor of the Municipal Finance Journal (1989-2023), a NAPA fellow (2005), and received the 2017 Industry Award from the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, ABFM’s Wildavsky Award (2008), and a Fulbright (2005). His books include the Public Budgeting Laboratory (1983) and State and Local Debt Management Issuance and Management (1996).
2019 – David Ammons
David Ammons is a distinguished professor emeritus of public administration in the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1996-2021) and the leading authority on local government performance management built on a career in both academia and practice. He received his B.A. from Texas Tech University (1971), MPA from Texas Christian University (1973), and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma (1983). His local government employment in management analysis and budgeting was with the cities of Fort Worth, Texas (1972), Hurst, Texas (1973-1974), Phoenix, Arizona (1974-1975), and Oak Ridge, Tennessee (1975-1977). He was on the faculty of the University of North Texas (1983-1987) before joining the Institute of Government at the University of Georgia (1987-1996) and then the faculty of UNC’s School of Government (1996-2021) where he was instrumental in creating the North Carolina benchmarking project. He was a member (2018-2022) and Vice Chair (2021) of the North Carolina Governor’s Advisory Committee on Performance Management. Significant service activities include the National Performance Advisory Commission (2008-2009), ASPA’s National Council (2004-2007), NASPAA’s executive council (2012-2015), and ICMA’s Credentialing Advisory Board (2021-2024). Recognitions include NAPA Fellow (2006), ASPA’s Wholey Award for work on public sector performance (2014, 2020), and ASPA’s Stone Scholar Award (2022). Along with numerous articles on local government management are books including ICMA’s Leading Performance Management in Local Government (2008), Municipal Benchmarks (2012), Performance Measurement for Managing Local Government (2020), and Tools for Decision Makers (2002, now in third edition).
2018 – Carol Ebdon
Carol Ebdon is Regents/Foundation Professor emeritus in the School of Public Administration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (1997-2023) known for her work on citizen participation in resource allocation decisions by local governments and implementing those practices in Omaha. She left the university to serve as Finance Director for the City of Omaha (2004-2009) after which she returned. She received a B.A. from John Carroll University (1978), an MPA from the University of Toledo (1979), and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany (1997). Before her doctoral studies, she had positions as a management analyst, deputy city treasurer, and director of accounting for the City of Rochester, New York (1980-1992). Her scholarly writings focus on participatory budgeting and public financial management. She was elected as a NAPA fellow in 2013. She has served as president of the Omaha Public Library Foundation Board (2012), president of her local Rotary Club (2006-2007), ABFM chair (2011), and president of ASPA chapters in New York (1985) and Nebraska (2001).
Scholarly Engagement Award
The Scholarly Engagement Award shall be awarded to the best submission for outstanding public budgeting and/or finance scholarly engagement in the previous calendar year. This should entail an effort or product of scholarship whose primary purpose is public and/or community service and the audience is public servants and practitioners. This award is open to all ABFM members in good standing at academic institutions including tenure or tenure track faculty, adjunct faculty, graduate students, and teaching and research faculty and staff. Only products where there is clear authorship are eligible. The products of scholarly engagement can represent a variety of work including, but not limited to, advising or consulting projects, courses/seminars/workshops, databases, webtools, books or published workbooks, and white papers or reports.
Scholarly Engagement Award Winners
- 2024 – Peter Jones
- 2022 – Justin Marlowe
Best Book Award
The Best Book Award shall be awarded to the best submission for an outstanding public budgeting and finance book or edited volume with a copyright date within the past three years. Award eligibility is limited to books with association members in good standing. The book should be targeted to an academic research audience, and not be a textbook or a practitioner workbook. Preference will be given to books rather than edited volumes.
Best Book Award Winners
- 2024 – George M. Guess and James D. Savage
- 2023 – Salvador Espinosa, Christine Martell, and Temirlan Moldogaziev
- 2022 – Elaine Yi Lu and Katherine Willoughby