Abstract
Public administration programs are familiar and comfortable with the self-study and analysis that comes with the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) accreditation process. NASPAA’s curriculum standards historically have focused on core competencies for all Master of Public Administration (MPA) students. There is a noticeable lack of guidance regarding what competencies are desirable for various specializations. No guidelines are available to benchmark the curriculum for the public budgeting and financial management specialization. This essay explicitly addresses the differences in the core skill sets necessary for public managers in general versus those necessary for managers who will be finance specialists, and offers a methodology to reformulate and refocus their fiscal administration core and specialty curricula.
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