“…Local budgeting is used to provide basic needs for society. Previous studies find a positive correlation between governments expenditure and welfare indicators, including HDI (Fadilah et al, 2018;Fahmi & Dalimunthe, 2018;Palayukan, 2019), IEGI (Purwanti & Rahmawati, 2021;Safitri et al, 2021), reducing poverty (Mustaqimah et al, 2017;Pratama & Utama, 2019), decreasing unemployment (Kaharudin et al, 2019;Muslim, 2014), and economic growth (Nurlina, 2015;Patanduk et al, 2019;Putri et al, 2018;Wahyudi, 2020). However, an increase in the local budgeting does not necessarily mean an increase in welfare (Leland, 2005).…”