Pamplin assistant professor recognized with national award

Emily Boykin, PhD, an assistant professor in Augusta University’s Master of Public Administration program in the Katherine Reese Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, was recently honored with a national award for a collaborative research paper.

Boykin, in collaboration with Ryan Lofaro, PhD, of Georgia Southern University, was awarded the William Petak Best Paper Award for “Public Values and Budget Agent Incentives: Evidence from Year-End Spending in Responsive or Wasteful Government Contracting” from the Section on Emergency and Crisis management at the American Society for Public Administration 2025 Conference in Washington, D.C.

Boykin and Lofaro have known each other for several years. They met while both were graduate students in their respective PhD programs at Florida State University and Florida Atlantic University, respectively. They have two previous publications that focused on year-end spending and another on performance management, measurement and public procurement.

The work demonstrates how external environments shape tradeoffs in public values and manifest in budgetary responsiveness.

“Dr. Lofaro and I have been very interested in the topic of year-end spending in public procurement,” said Boykin, who has been at AU since August 2024. “We’ve done a couple of papers before, but this specific paper we started writing at the beginning of the fall semester. It’s relatively new, and we’re looking to get it out for more eyes to see.”

William Hatcher, PhD, chair of the Department of Social Sciences, said Boykin receiving the award is significant because it comes from a section of their field’s premier professional association.

He said the paper contributes to three important areas in public administration: public procurement, emergency management and budgeting. He also noted it helps people understand how to minimize wasteful end-of-the-fiscal-year spending in the public sector and ensure that procurement spending is more rational in nature.

Boykin said they focused on year-end spending, specifically in the dichotomy between responsive versus wasteful government contracting. She and Lofaro have done previous work looking at how the fiscal year itself can contribute to different public budgeting responses.

“There is a lot of literature that shows spending at the fiscal year end is commonly associated with negative public budgeting outputs. Oftentimes, the focus is on outputs like lower transparency and efficiency in public dollars being spent,” she said. “What we’re doing in this specific paper is questioning whether there are certain conditions, particularly external conditions like during emergencies or crises, that may actually motivate or change the incentives of budget outputs.”

In her research, Boykin found budget managers were managing “trade-offs and public values.” She highlighted the COVID-19 pandemic and, locally, Hurricane Helene as examples of situations that might change incentives. Governing in these situations can’t always accommodate efficient spending with responsive spending or transparent spending.

Boykin noted that, during Hurricane Helene, the crisis response in Augusta rested on what the community prioritized, such as quicker turnaround time in order to get the power back on.

“But these decisions often come at the trade-off of budget outputs like potentially greater money spent due to the emergent nature of crisis, and ultimately this perspective tracks when we look specifically at spending during the fiscal year end,” she said.

Boykin wants to continue researching year-end spending and budget outputs and has set up initial projects with other collaborators.

Hatcher said Boykin’s contributions to AU since she’s been here have been outstanding.

“She has only been with us since August 2024, and, in that short time, Dr. Boykin has made significant contributions to AU by publishing impactful papers, designing new courses and winning awards like this one. We’re lucky to have her as part of our team,” Hatcher said.