A shrinkage of one-half or more in available federal funds designated for human services is expected to occur in the next five years. Despite this outlook, federal funds are available for increases in human services, provided that such services are organized into related systems of services and are planned and managed as such. This essay on budgeting in human services, using fiscal incentives to restructure programs and operations, can be of use to program planners and financial and budget people. "Designed in" cost control is the chief end of the measures described. The essay first indicates how disincentives to reform result from current budgeting and programming practices, and then shows how reform can be advanced and, in time, achieved through the combined use of two approaches: maximizing of federal funding, which provides funds for "buying reform" in the states; and program restructuring, in which the program is constructed on systems-oriented lines as a continuum of care. The two approaches accommodate both program preferences (such as normalization) and fiscal preferences (such as long-term minimum total cost for operating a normalized system). The purpose of the essay, however, is program reform in the states, not the maximizing of federal funds. To this end, maximizing is only a means, a set of techniques that the states can use to achieve parity with the federal government in program funding. (KC)