Which budgeting approach allocates funds to programs and activities?

• A. Zero based budget
• B. Annual budget
• C. Program budgeting
• D. Long term statistics

Answer: (C)

Program budgeting organizes resources around defined programs and activities that the department delivers, such as fire prevention, emergency response, training, and community risk reduction. Each program has its own goals, expected outputs, and associated costs, which lets you see how much is invested in each area and how well it advances the department’s objectives. This setup also makes it easier to compare programs, assess cost-effectiveness, and reallocate funding to the programs that deliver the most impact.

This differs from other methods: zero-based budgeting starts from zero and requires justification of every expense, not specifically by program structure; an annual budget covers a year’s worth of revenues and expenses but doesn’t inherently organize funding by program or activity; long-term statistics isn’t a budgeting approach at all.