have evaluated the City of Haltom’s Annual Budget for Fiscal 2016 budget using the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) recommended budget practices. The Annual Budget was reviewed under four major categories which are as follows: policy document, financial plan, operations guide, and communication device. Using the GFOA awards scale my rating of the budget for each individual category and the budget as a whole is a 4 (outstanding). The City of Haltom has received the GFOA Certificate of Achievement for fiscal years 1987-2014. The budgets prepared for submission have been recognized with the GFOA Distinguished Budget award annually since 1989 with exception of one year. The City continues to participate successfully in these two programs and follow mandatory and non-mandatory guidelines of the GFOA. The City of Haltom Budget is very transparent and provides a great deal of information to its citizens whom the city views at the top of the organizational chart for the city. The City’s budget for FY2016 appears to continue to conform to the GFOA program requirements and upon submission of their budget I have no doubt their budget for FY 2016 will receive a GFOA Distinguished Budget award.
Introduction
The budget process is a powerful planning tool for government to make important resource decisions. According the Carney and Schoenfeld‘s article on How to read a Budget, an operating budget is a reflection of government’s financial plans. When a budget is
Budget preparation is a process with designated groups and individuals having defined responsibilities. According to Irene S. Rubin “ The public budget process mediates between organizations and individuals who want different things and determines who gets what out of the budget.”1The Government set up an annual budget that includes people perspectives, opinions , accountability and than determine how the budget will get divided based on protected interests. Moreover, Public budgeting determines how government spend money, provide necessary resources , and limit government expenditures to prevent overspending.
BUDGET ANALYSIS OF THE CITY OF PHOENIX-2016 WITH THE OBJECTIVE OF MEETING THE NEEDS OF CITY
The City of Branson’s fiscal year runs January 1 through December 31. Typically, the budget preparation process begins in mid-July when budget documents and instructions are distributed by the Finance Department to the each city department. The various departments have approximately three weeks to assess any budget goals, capital and personnel requests, and to complete projections for the current fiscal year. By mid-August, the Finance Department completes a preliminary review of the departments’ budget, personnel and capital requests. The City Administrator then meets with the Finance Director to review any requests, and schedules one-on-one meetings with each department head.
A municipal budget is a financial plan that details the level of spending needed to bring the municipal services to the community at the same time maintaining the municipal assets by letting a clear balance between the assets and the liabilities. The budget document allows the mayor and the council to make decisions regarding the services that they provide to the community in the municipality. It acts as a guide to the infrastructure development programs as well as the management process. The budget ultimately is used to also determine if a tax increase is required. The annual budget of the Municipality of Red Lake that was presented for the year 2014 presented an adequate overview of the entity. Budget structures are made up of one to
An operating budget is a series of budgets outlining a company’s plans for the upcoming period, typically prepared annually. An operating budget consists of a sales budget, a production budget, a manufacturing budget, a selling expense
A fiscal document used to plan future revenue and expenditures is a called a budget (Murray, n.d.). The overall process of whether or not the company can continue to run with the projected revenue and expenditures is called budgeting (Murray, n.d.). It is valuable because it helps an organization consume the inadequate financials and human capital for which is best to achieve current business opportunities. A company is also capable of formulating both long-term and short-term strategies for help in implementation and constant assessment of its performance.
An operating budget is a detailed projection of all estimated income of what an organization expects to make and what it thinks its expenses will be based on forecasted sales revenue during a given period, typically one year. Every year, many organizations prepare an operating budget as it is an invaluable tool in the budget process as it helps the organization in its planning phase and serve as a roadmap for achieving the organization’s goal. The Virginia Department of Transportation also uses this process to to guide its policy and programmatic decisions.
Budgeting is an essential process within an organization, and budgeting is a plan of action that an organization takes at the time to secure its future. Budgeting provides managers with an overview of where they were, where they are, where they need to be, as well as financial goals for the future.
A new year represents new beginnings. Therefore, it's pointless to focus on the mistakes made with budgeting in past years. Use these clues as guidance toward a solid 2018 budget and expect to make progress toward fulfilling the goal.
Budgeting involves decision making regarding revenue and services for both public and nonprofit organizations. Furthermore, budgeting provides the infrastructure and financial means for our public systems and services. Primarily, the goal of budgeting is to achieve a balance between revenue and expenditures. Governmental allocation and appropriation of funds are a utilized as a political device to uphold the public interest. Appropriations permit policy proposals to manifest from aspirations into accomplishments. Budgeting is the financial consideration that provides resources to the policy promoted throughout all levels of government. Thus, budgeting promotes the values of the executive branch that matriculates to the federal, state and local levels of government. Tedious is the budget process and each stage must be completed meticulously prior to the advancement of each phase so that the budget is successfully implemented.
The Budget for 2017/2018 is summarised as follows in the corresponding topic areas heading each paragraph:
I again, explored and studied the financial plan of my local government, Albany-Dougherty County, GA. Dougherty County was formed from Baker County through an act of the Georgia General Assembly (Dougherty County Finance Department, 2015) in 1853. Dougherty County is named after Judge Charles Dougherty a judge out of Athens, GA. Through review of the 2010 census, I discovered that there is approximately 326 square miles of land in the county and population of 94,565 people (City of Albany, GA, 2015). Albany-Dougherty County is considered an innovative area in the state having several leading industries that moved here. Those industries include Proctor & Gamble, Miller Brewing Company and Albany Marine Corps Logistics Base (Dougherty County Finance Department, 2015). I examined the last three years, 2013, 2014 and 2015, budgets of particular note of the revenue sources, balances, surpluses, and deficits of the budgets. Assessing the internal and external opportunities or challenges of revenue sources. Looking for goals and priorities of the goods and services. Evaluating the budget stabilization measures and analyzing the financial policy as it leads to alternative taxes.
Any successful endeavor requires careful planning and controlling actions. Managers should have clearly communicated objectives against which to measure performance, quickly identify variances and take actions to correct as necessary. The budgeting process creates the organization’s operations master plan and is most effective when it engages employees at all levels of the organization.
Like every plan, the budget is based on some assumptions about what the costs and revenues will be affected by, and what the magnitude of these effects will be. These assumptions may change each time a budget is made and thus may need to be incorporated in the new budget. As opposed to the conventional form of budgeting which will be discussed later in this paper, zero-based budgeting does not assume that the assumptions made at the time of the last budget are still valid in the present context. Therefore, the assumptions have to be developed again and justified before senior management in order to win approval for the allocation of financial resources planned in the budget (Prokopenko, 1987).
Budgeting is an imperative tool in management. Budgeting is beneficial because it helps companies to reach their goals that they set in order to remain operational. “Most companies prepare long term strategic plans spanning 5 to 10 years. They then fine-tune them into medium-term and short-term plans” (932). Long-term strategic plans let us know about possible product advancements, investments, markets and help us prepare for what is likely to happen in the distant future. Medium-term plans and short-term plans (short-term plans are called budgets and last for the duration of one year) are plans that are actually acted upon day to day. These are budgets that are in motion and have their own goals. A budget is defined as a formal statement of a company’s future plans (932). Managers should arrange a budget because there will be a greater chance of a company’s success and the success of the manager.