This survey course will ground students in the concepts and practice of public budgeting, considered at multiple levels of government. The focus will be on principles of public finance; budgeting expenditures and collecting revenues; capital budgeting; and debt management. This preparation will serve masters students by providing a core understanding of this fundamental area of public administration, and prepare Ph.D. students for the advanced seminar in this topic. As this is the single required course in the field of public budgeting and finance in the MPA curriculum, we must cover a broad array of topics, which cannot be all-inclusive. However, the content foundation you build in this course should prepare you to pursue further topics in the field as your work or research requires. The skills you practice in this course – researching and writing professional explanatory memos on technical topics; analyzing quantitative data; presenting the results of analysis – should benefit you in other curricular areas as well as in the workplace.