Academic Administrator's Guide to Budgets and Financial Management. (2002). Margaret Barr. Jossey-Bass. 117 pp., $20.00 (paperback). ISBN 0-7879-5957-X.

Review by: Rania H. Sanford

School of Education

Stanford University

Margaret Barr demystifies budgets in her detailed and practical book on the subject. Author, editor, and professor of education, Barr provides an overview of the elements that drive budgets and contribute to their structure and development. She also delves into the rocky terrain of budget cuts and strategies. The book is an easy read and would be particularly useful to academic administrators for whom financial management is a new, or perhaps secondary, responsibility.

Barr draws on vast experience in managing many kinds of general and auxiliary budgets as she constructs big picture concepts and scenarios. Each of the book's five chapters is well organized into categories with headings, sets of questions, and useful worksheets, such as Questions to Consider Regarding the Budget Implications for Your Unit (p. 12) and Questions Regarding the Unique Case of Capital Budgeting (p. 73). The book is concluded with a list for further reading, a two page glossary of terms, and a five page index, all of which add to its reference value.

Barr exhibits a keen awareness of her academic administrator audience, contextualizing much of the budget discussion around issues such as enrollment, retention, technology, and program evaluation. In her focus on budget sources, models, and strategies, she does not lose sight of their larger academic purpose-hence its particular relevance to advisors. After reaching the enod of the book, readers know that a budget is more than a "set of numbers" (p. 34) and realize that it is a reflection of institutional priorities and needs. The budget manager, in this context, becomes the institutional "listening post [ who ] hears of issues and problems" (p. 2) and aims to address them.

The chapter on pitfalls of fiscal management is especially relevant. Barr explains how an inability to understand unit budget history, forecast long-term consequences, or identify hidden costs can be detrimental to unit credibility, the securing of future funding, and as a consequence, the continuance of programs. She ends the section with 10 pieces of advice to new managers (p. 87) that, although grounded in common sense, are often forgotten or ignored. In Unproductive Budget Games (p. 91), she also warns against all-too-common practices such as politicizing the budget process, inflating needs, or presenting an unrealistic picture.

Barr regards some of her book's practicality as a limitation. She writes in the introduction that the book "will help illuminate common problems and solutions. . . . [ but it ] does not extend into the extremely complex and critical areas of legal and personnel policy that are so often linked to the financial aspects of academic management" (p. xi). Barr, therefore, does not deal with business practices or accounting regulations central to the daily decision making necessary for compliance and fiscal accountability. Instead she targets advisors, chairs, or professors who use budgets as means to an end. This focus, and "limitation," makes the book an invaluable resource for its audience. Offering an understanding of the wide scope, critical aspects, and underlying structures of budgets, the book is a great addition to advisor libraries across higher education.