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- Genre: Case studies
- Creators: Giraud, Esteve Gaelle
Meatless Monday is an initiative that encourages actionable steps toward the reduction of meat consumption by asking participants to eat meat-free on Mondays. Many organizations, cities, schools, and correctional facilities have implemented Meatless Monday initiatives as a push to improve environmental sustainability, human health, and the welfare of animals. Such initiatives provide an opportunity to educate consumers on the health benefits of a plant-forward diet, the environmental impact of meat production, animal welfare issues, the innovation of non-meat proteins, and to engage stakeholders in gaining more control over their food choices. This report offers a summary of seven Meatless Monday initiatives throughout the U.S., highlighting best practices and notable challenges of implementing and maintaining such an initiative in three different contexts: local government, school systems, and non-profit or volunteer-led organizations. This report was conducted through an extensive look at previous research, news articles, and marketing materials, as well as interviews with stakeholders in six mid-sized U.S. cities.
This research reveals how governments cut budgets during fiscal crises and what pattern may emerge based on the cuts. It addresses a significant gap in literature by looking into the details of an agency for a full recession period to explain how cutback requirements were met. Through investigating a large Arizona state agency during the 2008 recession in the United States, the research reveals that cutback management is a stage-by-stage process lagging the immediate deterioration of the state’s economy and that patterns found among cuts are more often rational than not.
Cutbacks in this agency proceeded through three stages: the beginning, middle and the end period of cuts. In each stage, the author used descriptive analysis, process map analysis and cause and effect analysis to explore the features of cuts made. These methods of analysis were used to break down an annual budget reduction into original appropriation budget cuts, mid year reductions and the final budget cuts required to end the fiscal year in balance. In addition, the analytical methods permitted more detailed analysis of specific appropriation line items. The information used was secondary data collected from seven fiscal years around the recession and from various sources, including budgetary materials, legislation, accounting materials and many program reports related to budget cuts.
The findings suggested that across-the-board cuts are implemented at the beginning of cutback stage mainly to non-mandatory programs without jeopardizing the core functions of the agency. Later, in the middle period of the recession, selective cuts are made on large programs. Fund transfers and excess balance transfers are also preferred to reduce the budgets of other restricted funds. At the end stage of budget cuts, new revenue sources are established to support programs which had relied on general fund revenues in the past.
Overall, the cutback process observed in this research reflects decremental and rational patterns of decision making, contrasting with the randomness observed in previous research on cutback management. Across the board cuts are decremental; the remainders are rational, even strategic decisions. This investigation reminds researchers to be aware of the context and the level of observation when analyzing cutbacks.