Abstract
A model of incremental decision-making in local government is presented as an extention of that developed by davis et al. (1996) for US Congressional appropriation. This is then combined with joint supply and demand equation for local taxes and expenditure. An explicit Stone-Geary utility function derived when these fuctions are maximized subject to the supply and demand equations as constraints. Empitical results are then given for local authorities in England and Wales from 1974 to 1960. These results confirm a very important role for the bureauctic component within the overall tax-expenditure model.