Maybe the forms should be made too complex to be filled with a calculator, to encourage doing things the right way…

Wouldn’t work. Entire state budgets are accounted for by spreadsheets without formulas, emailed between people in an office with no revision control.

A few years ago when 50 million went missing, I wasn’t surprised. I’d seen the budgeting process, and it was worse than you could possibly imagine.

There was an attempt to go the software route, but a nepotism deal left the budgeting department with a worse system than manual spreadsheet entry.

lowest bidder took the 50mil. on a serious note tho, this is craziness. technical education and knowing how to code should be mandatory for these kinds of jobs.

Most of the budgeting department is highschool graduates with a few higher ups with accounting degrees.

The pay is abysmal either way. You would make more money at an entry level software job anywhere.

“Hire a coder” appears to be good advice for many organizations, but there’s not enough coders for everyone to do it, so most will do without.

But it's not.