It is anecdotal, but there are a lot of stories about departments spending their full budget at the end of the year on frivolous things because they know that if there is any unused money in their budget then it will be cut from next years budget.
I have a friend who worked in a department that wanted a bigger plotter. They were told that they could only get one if the cost of the plotter was less than some multiple of the amount they were spending annually on having a third party provider print larger sheets for them. It seemed reasonable, but the solution at the office was to drastically increase the amount of printing that they were sending to the third party. They started printing huge volumes of stuff and just tossing it in the garbage. Within a few weeks they had spent enough money to justify the plotter so they got a new one. It is just one example, but it seems like everyone in the government has stories like that.
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