The management of service cutbacks due to reductions in city government budgets is a new and largely undocumented decision-making process. The commonly used temporary measures and across-the-board cuts are both inadequate and inappropriate to long-term economic distress. Those solutions that have been proposed have not been developed into systematic programs. What is currently needed is to move beyond cutback management and view the present economic crisis as an opportunity to review organizational functions and relationships with constituents and to implement organizational change. A general strategy for organizational change includes designing a cutback management policy with the potential for minor changes; assessing the dispositions and strengths of the essential actors; pursuing these actors' support; defending the policy; and developing and maintaining the capacity for entrepreneurship. A more specific strategy based on these general principles is developed by the author to conclude the document. (Author/PGD)