Abstract: The establishment of a modern budget management system is the internal requirement of the fiscal and tax system reform in the new era, while the scientific budget preparations and standardized implementation are the key links in the modern budget management system. Budget is an important policy instrument for the government to intervene in the economy. During the period of concentrated changes of local official terms, the rational local officials have the motive to strategically use budget tools to achieve their political and economic goals, which will cause cyclical deviation of budgets. By making use of the data of 30 provinces across the country, the findings of this study show that the deviation of budgets has a budget cycle that changes with the changing of the official terms of the local governments. The deviation of budgets shows a pattern of “first rising then declining”before and after the change of official terms. Before the changes of official terms, there is a high degree of uncertainty in the change of officials and the central supervision is stronger, the economical behaviors of local officials are more likely to opt for“leaving some leeway”; after the changes of official terms, the changes of officials are decided, the central supervision becomes weakened, the promotion competition and the fiscal revenues increase jointly encourage local officials to choose the “aggressive”economic policy. In order to make the budget more scientific and further standardize the budget behavior of local officials, it is necessary to improve the promotion incentive mechanism of officials, perfect the economic target responsibility management system, standardize the budget management of fiscal revenue, and strengthen the supervision mechanism of government budget.

Key words: changes of official terms of local government, modern budget system, deviation of budget and final account, local fiscal revenue