Residence Requirements:

CANDIDATES MUST HAVE BEEN LEGAL RESIDENTS OF ERIE COUNTY FOR AT LEAST ONE MONTH IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE DATE OF THE WRITTEN TEST AND MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENTS OF ERIE COUNTY AT THE TIME OF APPOINTMENT. There is one anticipated vacancy at the Erie County Division of Budget and Management. 

Examples of Duties:

A Senior Budget Examiner-Probation is responsible for budgetary and administrative analysis utilizing a high degree of judgment, resourcefulness, and flexibility in interacting, coordinating, or influencing others to provide information; 

Assists in preparing the Probation Department’s operating budget;

Assists with special assignments from Department administration;

Represents Probation Director at Legislative meetings;

Communicates with department administration in the preparation, analysis, control and maintenance of the departmental budget;

Reviews and acts upon routine budgetary matters;

Analyzes budget requests and makes recommendations concerning same;

Recommends and implements policies regulating the financial and budgetary activities of the Probation Department; Makes special study investigations on requests;

Examines and reviews administrative organizations and methods of operation for recommendations;

Communicates with other governments;

Assists the Probation Director and other departmental staff in controlling cost allocations of services performed and “charge-back’ procedures for services rendered.

Qualifications:

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:  Candidates must meet one of the following requirements on or before the date of the written test:

A) Graduation from a regionally accredited or New York State registered college or university with a Master’s degree in Business Administration and two years of experience in budget preparation and analysis; or

B) Graduation from a regionally accredited or New York State registered college or university with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration or related field and four years of experience in budget preparation and analysis; or

C) An equivalent combination of training and experience as defined by the limits of (A) and (B). 

Notes:

1. Verifiable part-time and/or volunteer experience will be pro-rated toward meeting the experience requirements.

2. Your degree and/or college credit must have been awarded by a regionally accredited college or university or one recognized by the New York State Education Department as following acceptable educational practices. A grade of "D" or better is necessary for a course to be credited as successfully completed. If your degree and/or college credit was awarded by an educational institution outside of the United States and its territories, you must provide independent verification of equivalency. You can write to this Department for a list of acceptable companies providing this service; you must pay the required evaluation fee.

Notice to Candidates: Transcripts will now be accepted by the Department of Personnel ONLY at time of application.
All subsequent transcripts must be submitted at time of interview.

The New York State Department of Civil Service has not prepared a test guide for this examination. However, candidates may find information in the publication 'General Guide to Written Tests' helpful in preparing for this test. This publication is available on line at:https://www.cs.ny.gov/testing/testguides.cfm.

Subjects of Examination:

Subjects of Examination: A test designed to evaluate knowledge, skills and /or abilities in the following areas.

Preparing written material
These questions test for the ability to present information clearly and accurately, and to organize paragraphs logically and comprehensibly. For some questions, you will be given information in two or three sentences followed by four restatements of the information. You must then choose the best version. For other questions, you will be given paragraphs with their sentences out of order. You must then choose, from four suggestions, the best order for the sentences.

Budgeting
These questions are designed to test for knowledge of the principles and practices involved in governmental budgeting and may include, but not necessarily be restricted to, terminology associated with the budgeting process and budget cycle; the selecting of data for analysis (summarization and synthesis) in order to make inferences and draw conclusions which will provide a basis for making budget recommendations; applying analysis techniques to data (computation skills); the techniques involved in and factors affecting forecasting and trend analysis; presenting budget information at the level of analysis and type of perspective appropriate to the needs of each person/entity that you are communicating with; and actions associated with budget execution such as analysis of program outcomes or responding to situational changes after a budget has been passed.

Understanding and interpreting tabular material
These questions test your ability to understand, analyze, and use the internal logic of data presented in tabular form. You may be asked to perform tasks such as completing tables, drawing conclusions from them, analyzing data trends or interrelationships, and revising or combining data sets. The concepts of rate, ratio, and proportion are tested. Mathematical
operations are simple, and computational speed is not a major factor in the test. You should
bring with you a hand-held battery- or solar-powered calculator for use on this test. You
will not be permitted to use the calculator function of your cell phone.

Evaluating conclusions in light of known facts
These questions will consist of a set of facts and a conclusion. You must decide if the conclusion is proved by the facts, disproved by the facts or if the facts are not sufficient to prove or disprove the conclusion. The questions will not be specific to a particular field.

NOTICE TO CANDIDATES:  It is recommended that candidates use a quiet, hand held, solar or battery powered calculator.  Devices with typewriter keyboards, "Spell Checkers", “Personal Digital Assistants", "Address Books", "Language Translators", "Dictionaries", or any similar devices are prohibited.  You may not bring books or other reference materials.

**IMPORTANT APPLICATION FEE - READ CAREFULLY**

A $20.00 filing fee is required for this exam. The required fee must accompany your application. Send or bring check or money order made payable to Erie County Personnel Department and write the examination number(s) on your check or money order. Do not send or bring cash, as the County cannot be responsible for cash payment. As no refund will be made, you are urged to compare your qualifications carefully with the requirements for admission and file only for those examinations for which you are clearly qualified.