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This disguised case is a vehicle for discussion of the financial situation facing the management of a US public (nonprofit) television station. "WBLT" is a Midwestern station which has matured from simply broadcasting programs produced elsewhere to the production and distribution (with a related income stream) of its own programming. The case tells the story of the station's evolution and provides, in the form of exhibits, detailed information about its financial situation. HKS Case Number 1675.0

Rebecca Wilson, a recent policy school graduate, has started an unexpectedly successful small nonprofit to help urban high school students tap the many sources of financial aid for post-secondary education and thus boost their odds of attending college. As she seeks to expand her operation, she needs to reach beyond the network of friends and supporters who bankrolled the start-up. Applying for foundation support requires her to prepare formal financial statements for the first time. It embeds basic accounting in the context of a comprehensible organization, to solidify students' intuition about the function of financial statements, and guides them through the preparation of simple but complete actual and pro forma statements. An Excel spreadsheet paired with the case offers templates that allow students to construct realistic financial statements with very limited preparation and a minimum of computational drudgery. HKS Case Number 1595.0

Supplement for case HKS497.

Supplement for case HKS497.

As part of its efforts to recover from hyperinflation and an oversized public sector, the government of Argentinaspecifically the province of Buenos Airesseeks to control costs and improve service in local government. To do so, the provincial government tries a bold strategy: it splits up three large suburban Buenos Aires municipalities into eight new, smaller, jurisdictions. This budgeting, financial management, and political strategy case focuses on the implementation of the move toward smaller, more local government, through the prism of the creation of one of the new municipalities: the town of Hurlingham. The case describes the nuts-and-bolts budget decisions which a transition team of officials must make: how to structure the new government, how to increase tax receipts and the political decisions which its new mayor confronts. He must decide which parts of the new town will get service priority: high-voting wealthy districts where tax collection has been low, or poorer neighborhoods from which the new mayor drew key electoral support? This case allows both for rigorous budget analysis and assessment of budget-related political strategy. HKS Case Number 1493.1

As part of its efforts to recover from hyperinflation and an oversized public sector, the government of Argentinaspecifically the province of Buenos Airesseeks to control costs and improve service in local government. To do so, the provincial government tries a bold strategy: it splits up three large suburban Buenos Aires municipalities into eight new, smaller, jurisdictions. This budgeting, financial management, and political strategy case focuses on the implementation of the move toward smaller, more local government, through the prism of the creation of one of the new municipalities: the town of Hurlingham. The case describes the nuts-and-bolts budget decisions which a transition team of officials must make how to structure the new government, how to increase tax receipts and the political decisions which its new mayor confronts. He must decide which parts of the new town will get service priority: high-voting wealthy districts where tax collection has been low, or poorer neighborhoods from which the new mayor drew key electoral support? This case allows both for rigorous budget analysis and assessment of budget-related political strategy. HKS Case Number 1493.0

This hypothetical case is a paradigm of the privatization decision facing many jurisdictions as they struggle with budget pressures. It tells the story of the town manager of a small Texas municipality who has reason to believe that, if she were to accept the bid of a private firm to pick up and dispose of trash, she could balance the town's budget and save enough money to avoid cutting back the hours of the town's lone social worker. Privatization, however, will mean firing two popular long-time town sanitation employees who also do assorted maintenance tasks once they've finished hauling the trash. The case calls on students to take the role of the town manager and decide, after analyzing the town's current budget and costs, as well as the private trash collection bid, whether or not to "go private." HKS Case Number 1033.0.