One of the common dramas that plays out with many places that operate on annual budgets, is the phenomenon of the "Use it or lose it" money. In the US it's axiomatic for almost all government spending, and many places in private sector, as well.
The way it works is, let's just say you're in charge of the flibber department for your county government. Flibbering is important and involves a certain amount of specialized equipment, which costs money to both operate and maintain; it required two or three flibber techs to operate the equipment, and there are certain administrative costs associated with running the flibber equipment that also must be covered.
So, you look at your figures from last year, and find that for reasons beyond your control, flibbering was down. It could be that it can only happen in certain weather conditions, or that the areas for flibbering were otherwise occupied, or it might even mean that demand for flibbering is going down.
Whatever the reasons, you've got 20% of your annual budget left, just before the end of the fiscal year. So what do you do with it? In the US, most of the time there begins a race to find any semi-legitimate way to spend that money so that the next year's budget won't be deducted the amount of your overage this year.
In an ideal world, it would make sense to adjust future budgets based on prior usage and need, but in the real world - it seems to act to encourage ever growing spending.
And I really don't have a quick answer for it. Anyone else got ideas?