Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Georeferencing a Local Budget Plan
The structure of a local budget plans actually contains different kind of plans which
in sum, build the local budget plan. The most important parts of the local budget
plan which are relevant for georeferencing are the cash flow budget and the profit
and loss budget. The first includes all investments (e.g. building new roads, building
new houses). The latter one includes all services of the local authority (e.g. pupils
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transport, financial support for associations, maintenance of streets and buildings).
When georeferencing the local budget, the question “where is the spatial
impact?” has to be answered for every single expenditure. The author constructed
a theoretical framework for classifying the spatial impacts. It consists of five
groups:
impact of expenditure can be seen in the living environment, e.g. when building
new schools or new streets;
expenditure goes to an object located at a certain address, but the beneficiaries
are not the people living in the surroundings, but the people using the services
offered within or through this object; therefore, not the address of the object has
to be georeferenced, but the addresses of the beneficiaries; e.g., visitors of a
museum or the theatre, members of a sports association;
the expenditure concerns a line; e.g., maintenance of a certain street;
the expenditure concerns an area, e.g. the state forest;
the expenditure has no spatial impact, e.g. annual interests.
For demonstrating the procedure of georeferencing a local budget plan, the local
budget plan 2009 from the city of Trier has been used as case study. Similar results
of georeferencing can be expected in other cities using the same kind of budget plan
structure (which is, actually, the most used one in Germany).
In total, 412 positions of the local budget plan of the case study contain
expenditures for investments. Around 20 % of theses investments can not be
georeferenced. Around 20 % can be georeferenced as lines or polygons. The rest,
around 60 %, can be georeferenced as points: either the investment
s impact can be
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seen directly at the points
coordinates; or, the impact cannot be perceived in the
built environment, but users of the establishment which is supported by the invest-
ment are the beneficiaries. The latter kind of expenditures is highly linked to data
security issues, which could be solved within the research project by signing a data
security contract between the author and the local administration. The data were
only presented in aggregated units, so no link between particulars and the expen-
ditures can be made.
Especially in the last category, there is a big lack between theoretically possible
georeferencing and data availability: from 132 expenditures with indirect spatial
impact, only 17 can really be georeferenced by using address data. 94 expenditures
can be georeferenced by using the establishment
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s location instead of the users
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addresses. For 21 expenditures, no data is available. The other three categories are
easier to georeference.
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