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Finance and Budgeting 141 e capital investments. In addition,the secondary impacts of federal,capital-related 1 71 programs are not yet well understood, let alone controlled. For example, a fed- it eral or state environmental requirement may force a local government unit to �. build a trunk sewer line in a particular-location. While this capital investment !_ achieves certain environmental objectives, the construction of it can also open !t up vast areas of land for urban development. Local land use plans may not have ! ' proposed such development. As can be seen even from this short discussion, local government capital in- s vestments can be greatly.influenced by other levels of government. The degree e to. which local government units can use capital investments to shape urban g growth will determine the extent to which the CIP serves as an effective manage- y ment tool. d n n The CIP process and the political process v� is >, The procedures discussed in this chapter for the CIP and the local budget em- ►- y :_r phasize concepts, techniques, and bureaucratic routines that are essential.to-a tl ; well-managed local government. The neat, rational process described does not e really explain completely the complex political process that is taking place d simultaneously, often outside the bureaucratic technical process. A favorite r pastime of some academics(albeit unsophisticated ones)is to take planning and , e "ti management literature describing such routines and then compare real world fl case studies to the routines. These analyses always come to the conclusion that o "things don't always work that way." However, this does not mean budgetary processes are obsolete, unrealistic, or naive—it simply means that the process ! )r = is more complicated. The purpose of this section is to make some generalizations from the litera- ti ture (see the bibliography to this chapter)that describe the richness of local gov e ernment budgetary decision making. r_ • One set of observations that have been made relates to common patterns of action within a government's technical bureaucracy. For example, heads of s operating departments are far more interested in their own departmental priori- ties than they are in citywide policy issues. Thus, the public works director is o - more interested in sewer construction than in park acquisition. Also. given the - fact that most department heads are running ongoing programs and services. )r they are more interested in solving current problems than in building an infra- _ structure for an urban land use policy program. Generally. but not always, the 1- department administrator's time horizon may be shorter than the planner's. 1e Naturally. all department heads ask for more than they expect to get: therefore. KI projects listed near the bottom of a priority list may be of next to no importance. k Moreover, politically astute department heads frequently establish informal re- n lationships with elected officials, especially council committees related to their own areas of interest:therefore,they have built a consensus on certain projects. Another general observation relates to when capital investment decisions are . s made. Manv investment decisions are made outside the annual CIP process. For example, emergencies can occur in the middle of the budget year and ex- penditures must be made. Decisions on capital investments may be made as po- e litical promises during campaigns and then implemented after new officials take office. A few major capital.investment decisions may be made when a compre- hensive plan is adopted. More commonly, however, many key investment deci- d sions are made at the time when neighborhood or district plans.are.prepared. y Also,new programs and projects become possible because of a new state.law or s federal program.The point here is that not all decision making is postponed until that time of year when the CIP is being prepared. Some of the literature deals with the role of elected officials in the budgetary r process: In general, elected officials.are engaged in a constant negotiating pro-