December fever
December fever or November fever is a critical term for the in authorities complete issue of public administration observed behavior allocated but not yet spent funds at year-end.
causes
To this end, the authorities are looking towards the end of the year for ways of spending the money after all, because the spending authorizations (nothing else are budget titles) can usually not be carried over into the next year, but expire.
This means that there is a risk, especially in the case of budget titles that have not been used for several years, that the budget will be reduced in subsequent years by the amount that was not required in the past year or in the past years. This would restrict the agency's room for maneuver. The importance of the department concerned may also suffer as a result, because it may also be measured by the sum of the outflow of funds.
These efforts lead z. B. also to the fact that at the end of the year invoices from contractors are paid for deliveries and services that have not yet been fully performed, in the hope and in the trust that they will be properly performed at the beginning of the next year. This is dangerous for the civil servants, because the company that has not yet performed or performed incompletely may go bankrupt after payment. In order to avoid this danger, housekeepers for the authority sometimes get bank guarantees from the suppliers.
Sometimes there are budget freezes towards the end of the year in order to prevent the (in some cases pointless) spending, but sometimes these only lead to an advance of spending, the November fever . Budget freezes can of course also be imposed at the beginning of a budget year or an approach can only be released in October or November of the current year (for various reasons, for example to achieve a balanced budget through interest income); in this case, the cause of the “feverish” expenditure in the last months of the year does not lie with the authority concerned.
Negative consequences
Such a December fever constitutes a violation of two budgetary principles. Firstly, expenditure should only be made when it is necessary and, secondly, only when it is due. If viewed correctly, no money is allocated to the authorities, but the budget estimates only represent an authorization to spend a certain amount at the expense of the relevant public coffers. The money, actually the initial amount, does not exist in a budget estimate like in a current account or savings book , but only represents the amount of the authorization to access the real amount of money, for example on the account of a state treasury, via a cash arrangement, which then pays out to a supplier . The use of the authorizations at the end of the year for services that are not required senselessly increases the country's indebtedness, while bringing forward the procurement of necessary services and bringing forward the payment of necessary services before the due date increases the country's interest burden because the loan is taken out earlier got to.
December fever in the economy
A similar behavior is also observed in large companies with cost center planning, where the budget for the following year is based on the previous year.
Mitigation through reforms
The December fever is often blamed on the accounting system of cameralistics because it forces them to spend budget funds until the end of the year; but it also occurs in the double . In fact, it results from the budgetary principle of annuality .
In some federal states, for example, so-called global budgets have been set up in universities , which both make it easier to move funds between individual pots and also provide the opportunity to save excess funds into the next budget year. In Rhineland-Palatinate, universities may e.g. For example, 75% of the funds not used at the end of the year from the personnel area are transferred to titles to be determined in the area of personnel and material expenses; if transferred to the investment area, even 100% may be transferred. Remaining material resources can be transferred up to 75% into material titles or 100% into investment titles. 100% of the remaining investment funds can be transferred to investment titles for the following year. Normally, regular budget funds can only be carried over to the following year to complete projects that have not been completed at the end of the year.
Harmless reasons
Statistics on public administration money consumption show a steady flow of money for the rest of the year, but a significant increase at the end of the year. The rise in spending shortly before the end of the year has, in part, simple and harmless reasons. When households go through the list of open orders towards the end of the year, companies and contractors are often urged to finally provide the service. Companies that have provided the service but have not yet issued an invoice are also pressured to do so because the households do not want to go into the annual financial statements with numerous open cases. So the housekeepers want to go into the new year without any commitments.
It is also possible that the budget of an institution is so tight that the housekeeper has to keep a small reserve for unexpected expenses such as damage to machines or buildings. That is why he postpones necessary investments until the year is almost up and it becomes unlikely that greater damage will occur. Then he quickly uses up the reserve that is now probably no longer required for necessary or at least sensible purchases.