Abstract: Budget growth is a very important issue in the study and practice of public budgeting. Behind the characteristics of budget growth, it is the combined action of economic changes, social changes, policy transformations, government reforms and budget system. A study of the 2008-2016 budget data of 101 departments in City A, one of the prefecture-level cities of Guangdong province, shows that: the growth characteristics of total expenditure and project expenditure of the department budgets in City A both tend to be dominated by the intermittent budget model, and the intermittent characteristics of project expenditure are more significant; the incremental and the intermittent characteristics of the department budget in City A are the result of the resources allocation influenced by many factors under the joint action of incremental budget and zero-base budget. Therefore, in order to further optimize the budget results of the government departments of prefecture-level cities, it is necessary to strengthen the standardization and transparency of budgeting and to improve the scientificity of budget expenditure standards; to strengthen the linkage between the policy process and the budget process, and to establish a well-restrained budget system; and to integrate the performance concept into the whole process of budget management, so as to implement the full scale performance management.

Key words: budget management; departmental budget; budget growth characteristics; incremental budget; intermittent budget