A budget that only looks one year ahead is already behind. For public sector institutions, the annual approval is a milestone — not the finish line. Margarita Lekaj, MBA, a Public Service Leader with more than 15 years of experience in public sector budget management, treats multi-year planning as the real work, with the single-year budget as just one checkpoint along the way.
Multi-year planning means projecting revenue, expenses, and capital needs across several fiscal years instead of just the one directly ahead. It accounts for:
This kind of fiscal planning gives leadership teams and governing boards a realistic picture of where the institution is headed — not just where it stands today.
An annual budget approval can create a false sense of completion. Once it’s passed, it’s tempting to treat the process as done until next cycle. But institutions that only plan year to year are often caught off guard by cost increases, grant funding gaps, or capital needs that could have been anticipated with a longer view.
Margarita Lekaj’s approach to budget development draws directly from her background in commercial banking, where she held full P&L responsibility across multiple branches. That experience taught her that financial oversight is a continuous discipline, not a once-a-year event — a principle she has carried into every public sector role since.
Multi-year budgeting also supports better capital project oversight, since major projects rarely fit neatly inside a single fiscal year. When budgets account for multi-year timelines from the outset, institutions are less likely to face funding shortfalls mid-project or last-minute scrambles to reallocate resources.
The goal isn’t just to get a budget approved. It’s to build one that still makes sense two or three years down the line.
Margarita Lekaj, MBA, is a Public Service Professional and Operations Leader based in New York. Her career spans public sector budget management, grants management, fund accounting, and capital project oversight, with a foundation built during years of leadership in commercial banking at Bank of New York and JPMorgan Chase.
Multi-year planning means projecting revenue, expenses, and capital needs across several fiscal years instead of just the one directly ahead. It accounts for:
This kind of fiscal planning gives leadership teams and governing boards a realistic picture of where the institution is headed — not just where it stands today.
A budget that only looks one year ahead is already behind. For public sector institutions, the annual approval is a milestone — not the finish line. Margarita Lekaj, MBA, a Public Service Leader with more than 15 years of experience in public sector budget management, treats multi-year planning as the real work, with the single-year budget as just one checkpoint along the way.