Media Contact: Savannah Koplon, skoplon@uab.edu
Peter Jones, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science and Public Administration
Areas of expertise:
- Public budgeting
- Financial management at the state and local level
- Education policy
Peter A. Jones, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. An expert in public budgeting and finance, he focuses on the budget processes and financial management of state and local governments, including public school districts. Among his recent publications, he considered how school districts used forecasting and rainy day funds to build slack in their budgets, and he studied how school district revenues changed in response to charter schools. His forthcoming work examined determinants of successful school bond referenda.
Jones teaches in UAB’s Master of Public Administration program. A recipient of multiple UAB Quality Enhancement Plan grants, he has been an innovator by developing classroom based simulations to teach public budgeting concepts and implementing a new approach to grading. He was among the first to receive a gold certificate from UAB’s Center for Teaching and Learning, and he was the first faculty member at UAB to earn the platinum level certificate. He was recently named a QEP Fellow and also serves as a faculty mentor for a UAB CIRTL student.
In addition to his service to UAB and his field, Jones serves on the State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and he co-leads Alabama’s chapter of the Scholar Strategy Network. He is also a member of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama’s Roundtable.
Media appearances
- Forecast bias and fiscal slack accumulation in school districts, SAGE Journals
- The influence of charter school competition on public school district revenues across the U.S., Project Muse
- Census 2020, the coronavirus and you, WBRC FOX 6
- Supply, demand and the coronavirus, WBRC FOX 6