The study was delimited in the following ways:
1. The study was restricted to one school district. The district is a large urban district, serving approximately 70,000 students.
2. The study was restricted to the 1994/95-school year and budget cycle.
3. One hundred and ninety-six schools, all of the non-institutional schools in the District, were used for the results review analysis.
4. For the task analysis, a random sample of 30 schools was used. This sample was representative of all the schools in the District. Although there were enough elementary schools in sample to make generalizations concerning elementary schools, the sample sizes for other types of schools were too small to use for this purpose.
5. The School Budget and Budget Review documents developed by the District were the sole source of data used in the study.