ANALYZING YOUR HOMETOWN’S FINANCIAL CONDITION

ANALYZING YOUR HOMETOWN’S FINANCIAL CONDITION

This Assignment is nearly identical to the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) assignment you completed last week, except the ACFR you select to analyze for this Assignment will be more intricate and complicated. The ACFR knowledge you gained last week will support your efforts as you select a community of your choosing and examine its actual ACFR. Make the most of this opportunity to build upon and extend your knowledge of the financial documents and concepts you have been studying by selecting different elements of the ACFR and making connections to different concepts. Consider bringing in additional resources, beyond the Learning Resources, to expand your understanding of both the ACFR and your chosen community.

RESOURCES

   Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.   

WEEKLY RESOURCES

Required Readings

Budget Resources

Mikesell, J. L. (2018). Fiscal administration (10th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Chapter 2, “The Logic of the Budget Process”

Budgets and Political

Strategies

(pp. 87–97)

The Incrementalist Insight

Roles, Vision, and Incentives

Strategies

Chapter 3, “Budget Methods and Practices”

Preparation of Agency Budget Requests (pp. 110–121)

Budget Justification

Elements of Cost Estimation

Personnel Costs: Paying the Staff

Non-Personnel Costs

Review of Budgets (pp. 122–127)

Reviewing a Budget Request

The Executive Budget: The Plan and the Balancing (pp. 127–131)

Chapter 6, “Budget System Reforms: Trying to Make Better Choices”

Long-Range Plan (pp. 27–29)

Note: Read only the following sections:

Note: Read only the following sections:

Morrill, C. (2021).

To increase trust in government, reinvent the local government budget.Links to an external site.

State and Local Government Review 2021, 53(1) 10–13.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X211000835

Review Instructor comments on your Week 4 paper and incorporate any suggestions.

Introduction(1–2 paragraphs)Introduce your city, including its major industries/sectors and two interesting facts about its financial condition.Statement of Net Position Assessment (1–2 paragraphs)Based on your assessment of the Statement of Net Position, how would you describe your city’s solvency? Include the results of your computations.Statement of Activities Assessment (1 paragraph)Based on your assessment of the Statement of Activities, create a pie chart that shows each of the functions/programs as a percentage of the total government spending. Include the pie chart you created. What conclusions can you draw about your city’s priorities? 1
Title of the Paper in Full
Student Name
Program Name or Degree Name (e.g., Master of Science in Nursing), Walden University
COURSE XX: Title of Course
Instructor Name
Month XX, 202X
2
Title of the Paper in Full
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5
References
(Note that the following references are intended as examples only.)
American Counseling Association. (n.d.). About us. https://www.counseling.org/about-us/aboutaca
Anderson, M. (2018). Getting consistent with consequences. Educational Leadership, 76(1), 2633.
Bach, D., & Blake, D. J. (2016). Frame or get framed: The critical role of issue framing in
nonmarket management. California Management Review, 58(3), 66-87.
https://doi.org/10.1525/cmr.2016.58.3.66
Burgess, R. (2019). Rethinking global health: Frameworks of Power. Routledge.
Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital status, and the survival
times of terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24(2), 225–229.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225
Johnson, P. (2003). Art: A new history. HarperCollins. https://doi.org/10.1037.0000136-000
Lindley, L. C., & Slayter, E. M. (2018). Prior trauma exposure and serious illness at end of life:
A national study of children in the U.S. foster care system from 2005 to 2015. Journal of
Pain and Symptom Management, 56(3), 309–317.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2018.06.001
Osman, M. A. (2016, December 15). 5 do’s and don’ts for staying motivated. Mayo Clinic.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/5-dos-and-donts-forstaying-motivated/art-20270835
Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (7th ed.).
Wiley.
6
Walden University Library. (n.d.). Anatomy of a research article [Video].
https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/instructionalmedia/tutorials#s-lg-box7955524
Walden University Writing Center. (n.d.). Writing literature reviews in your graduate
coursework [Webinar].
https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/webinars/graduate#s-lg-box-18447417
World Health Organization. (2018, March). Questions and answers on immunization and vaccine
safety. https://www.who.int/features/qa/84/en/
I
26
PART II Planning
The budget process includes the preparation of budgets; their review, revision, and ulti­
mate adoption; their implementation; and evaluation of the results after the fact. A primary
responsibility of management is to control results. Control represents a process of trying to
keep to the plan. This is done by motivating people to achieve the plan, evaluating perfor­
mance of both organizational units and individual persons, and taking corrective action when
things are not going according to plan.
These issues are discussed in this chapter. Chapter 3 picks up where this chapter leaves off,
looking at a variety of additional budgeting issues for governmental, health, and not-for-profit
organizations. It examines a number of different types of budget presentations and ways to
organize budgets, and also discusses a variety of budgeting techniques. That chapter finishes
with a discussion of some unique aspects of budgeting for governmental organizations.
MISSION
The organization’s mission represents its raison d’etre. Public, health-care, and not-for­
profit organizations have missions that relate to providing a public service. Their mission may
be to improve society by providing wide access to culture-through museums, opera, ballet,
or symphony. Or the mission may relate primarily to healing the ill or feeding and sheltering
the poor. For government, the mission may be to provide essential common services such as
police, education, sewers, and fire protection.
For public, health, and not-for-profit organizations, then, profitability is a means to an end
rather than the end itself. To some extent, the health-care industry is becoming more and more
a part of the for-profit sector. Similarly, the for-profit education sector has grown. For such
proprietary public service organizations, profits do play an important role in the organization’s
mission. However, their profit motive must be balanced with the public service elements of
their mission.
Chapter 1 introduced Meals for the Homeless (Meals)-a hypothetical organization. One
of the first activities for Leanna Schwartz, the new executive director of Meals, would be to
examine the mission statement. To lead the organization, she must be thoroughly familiar
with what the organization hopes to achieve.
A good mission statement answers five questions. The first three define the domain of
the organization. They are, “What does the organization plan to do?,” “Who will it serve?,”
and “Where will it operate?” The fourth is, “How does the organization plan to deliver its ser­
vices?,” and the final question is ”Why has Meals for the Homeless chosen its specific social
purpose?” Here is the mission statement of Meals:
Meals for the Homeless recognizes the plight of the homeless residents of Middle City,
and we hold that society must ensure at least some minimal level of food security for
these individuals. It is, therefore, the mission ofMeals for the Homeless to provide food
to the homeless in Middle City whenever a homeless individual’s nutritional needs are
not being met by other sources.
Like all good mission statements, the mission of Meals includes both breadth and limita­
tions. A mission should be targeted. Ifthe goal is to do everything for everyone, the mission is
unlikely to be achieved and the organization will lack clear direction. Ifthe mission is too nar­
row, it may not provide the organization with sufficient challenge to sustain itself over time.
In the mission statement for Meals, there is breadth in that the goal of the organization
is to meet the nutritional needs of every homeless person who cannot get food from other
CHAPTER 2
Planning for Success: Budgeting
sources. The limitations are that the organization is geographically limiting its efforts to
Middle City and to supplying food. It is not providing jobs, shelter, medical care, or other
services.
STRATEGIC PLAN
Once the organization has a clearly defined mission, it can develop its strategy for accom­
plishing that mission. The strategic plan defines the primary approaches that the organiza­
tion will take to achieve its mission. Generally, strategic plans do not have specific financial
targets. However, they set the stage for specific, detailed budgets.
The mission of Meals is to ensure an adequate supply of nutritious food for the homeless.
It could attempt to achieve that mission by a large number of approaches. Meals could be a
lobbying organization, raising money and using it to lobby for legislation requiring the govern­
ment to provide nutritious food to the homeless. Another strategy would be to start a “take a
homeless person to dinner” campaign. This approach would consist primarily of advertising,
with a goal of encouraging the general public to buy meals and give them directly to homeless
people. The general strategy that Meals has taken is to solicit donations of food and money,
and to use those resources to prepare and serve meals directly to the homeless. Meals uses two
delivery trucks and one soup kitchen to carry out this strategy. This was pretty much the way
things had been for the past 10 years, despite a growing number of homeless in Middle City.
When Leanna Schwartz became executive director of Meals she decided that it had a clear
mission. It also had an overall strategy or approach for accomplishing that mission. However,
it had no broad goals. As a result, as the needs ofthe homeless grew, Meals had not responded.
Therefore, as one of her first priorities, Schwartz decided to form a subcommittee from her
board of directors to establish a more formal strategic plan, including a set of goals for the
organization. The strategic plan would serve as a link between the mission and activities that
the organization would undertake to achieve that mission.
As part of the new strategic plan, Meals developed the following goals:
• Directly provide nutritious meals to the homeless of Middle City.
• Directly provide nutritious meals to the indigent in Middle City’s public housing.
• Increase the fraction of the target population served from 20 percent to 60 percent
within 5 years.
• Expand funding sources to cover the increase in services, including corporate
sponsorships and direct fundraising.
Schwartz was pleased with this set of goals. She believed that it pointed the organization
in the direction its mission dictated. She also believed that it gave her some tangible targets to
work toward. The next step would be to translate the goals of the strategic plan into attainable
objectives.
LONG-RANGE PLAN
While the strategic plan establishes goals and broad strategies, the long-range plan (some­
times referred to as the operating plan) considers how to achieve those goals. Long-range
plans establish the major activities that will have to be carried out in the coming 3 to 5 years.
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PART II
Planning
This process provides a link between the strategic plan and the day-to-day activities of the
organization. Organizations that do not prepare a long-range plan are often condemned to
just sustain current activities, at best. Many managers simply try to replicate the current year’s
results when they plan for the coming year. They take whatever has happened, add a few
percentage points for inflation, and assume that they have an adequate plan for the future.
The problem with that approach is that after s years the organization will likely be exactly
where it is today. It will be providing the same quantity and quality of services. It will not be
able to look back at where it was s years ago, compare that to where it is today, and find that a
satisfying amount of progress has been made. Most public service managers believe that they
are trying to achieve something. They do not work in the field just to collect a paycheck, but
rather to provide some service to society. Given that, it does not make sense to try to sustain
operations without any significant gains over time.
Management needs vision. Great managers are those individuals under whose steward­
ship organizations make great strides forward. In some cases, vision may come from inspira­
tion that only a few people ever have. In many cases, however, vision is a result of hard work
and careful planning. It is the result of taking the time to think about the organization’s mis­
sion, form a strategic plan with goals, and then establish the tactics to carry out that plan and
achieve the goals.
For example, one element of the strategic plan for Meals is expansion of meals provided
from 20 percent to 60 percent of the target population. This cannot be achieved by simply car­
rying out the existing daily routine, day after day, year after year. Nor can it happen overnight.
A long-range plan must be developed that will specify how the organization expects to achieve
that goal.
The managers of Meals will have to determine what must happen to attain its goals.
Schwartz would likely start by having conversations with many interested parties about how
best to get meals to the poor of the city. Then, a variety of approaches or tactics might be con­
sidered. Finally, a long-range plan will be formulated.
The long-range plan should focus on both financial and nonfinancial issues. For example,
there are many dimensions to quality in providing a service. How long do the homeless have to
wait in line for the meal? Do the homeless like the way the food tastes? What is the relationship
between each soup kitchen and its community? Organizations, especially public service orga­
nizations, need to be concerned with more than just the number of units of service provided
(output) . The number of meals served is important. But Meals’ long-range plan should more
broadly help it to achieve its desired outcomes. Outcomes are the results that the organiza­
tion is trying to achieve. These objectives are not all easily quantified in financial terms.
For example, Meals’ mission calls for providing the homeless with an adequate amount
of nutritious food. Therefore, a desired outcome is providing the homeless with nutritious
meals. To achieve its mission, Meals might adopt a strategy of ensuring its meals meet all
federal government daily recommended levels for a balanced diet. The long-range plan needs
to include specific tactics for that strategy. Meals’ long-range plan may indicate that every
meal must contain some protein, fat, carbohydrates, vegetables, and fruit. The organization
will only deem itself to be effective if it not only provides meals to enough homeless, but also
provides meals that meet its nutritional targets.
Some objectives are more directly tied to financial issues. After gathering input and con­
sidering choices, Schwartz might decide that the most efficient way to expand from 20 percent
to 60 percent coverage (the goal) would be to add three new locations, strategically located to
be readily accessible to the largest number of homeless, and to add four more vehicles to its
current fleet of two (specific tactics to achieve the goal). These changes will require specific
financial resources.
All these tactics could probably be carried out within 3 months, except that the organiza­
tion does not have the money for the expansion. Money will be needed to buy equipment and
CHAPTER 2
Planning for Success: Budgeting
vehicles, pay rent, buy food, and hire staff. The long-range plan will also have to address how
to raise the money and when to spend it (more tactics). A reasonable long-range plan for Meals
might include the following objectives:
Year 1:
Year 2:
Year 3:
Year 4:
Year 5:
Establish a fundraising campaign and begin fundraising. Raise enough money to
open one new site.
Add a food distribution/soup kitchen location. Raise additional money to acquire
and operate a vehicle and open another location. Solicit more restaurants for
leftover food donations.
Add another food distribution/soup kitchen location and a new vehicle. Raise
additional money to acquire and operate a vehicle and open another location.
Solicit more restaurants for leftover food donations.
Add another food distribution/soup kitchen location and a new vehicle. Raise
additional money to acquire and operate two vehicles. Solicit more restaurants
for leftover food donations.
Add two new vehicles. Raise additional money to begin replacement of old
kitchen equipment and old vehicles. Get enough contributions to at least reach a
steady state in which replacements take place as needed.
As can be seen from the preceding objectives, unless planning is done in Year 1 to raise
money, the organization will never be able to undertake the acquisition and expansion in Years
2 through 5. The organization cannot be satisfied with raising enough to get through the com­
ing year. For it to thrive, rather than merely survive, it must think ahead. The long-range plan
provides the opportunity to think ahead prior to making budgets for the coming year.
The objectives included in the long-range plan can be thought of as quantified targets.
These targets can relate to both inputs and outputs. For example, we can think in terms of spe­
cific fundraising objectives, specifying the total dollar amount of donations we plan to receive
each year over the coming 5 years. We can also think in terms ofthe specific number ofdelivery
trucks to be purchased. These targets or objectives make it possible to create specific, detailed
budgets for the organization in financial terms.
BUDGETS
What is a budget? It is simply a plan. The plan indicates management’s objectives and shows
how it expects to obtain, pay for, and use resources to achieve those objectives. In some cases,
the plan may be the result of enacted legislation. The budget indicates the amount of money
that an organization expects to earn and receive from all sources for the period it covers, which
is usually a year. It also indicates the amount of resources the organization expects to use in
its operations, and the amount of money that it will pay for those resources. Thus, it provides
managers with a detailed action plan. Based on the information in the budget, managers make
decisions that they believe will help them carry out the plan and therefore accomplish the
organization’s objectives.
Budgets must be developed to plan for the accomplishment of goals and objectives. The
process requires that a number of predictions and decisions be made. How many homeless
will there be next year? What percentage of the homeless will be children? How many workers
should the organization assign to fundraising? How many restaurants should be solicited for
food? What vehicles will be purchased, and at what price? How much will kitchen employees
be paid per hour and in total for the coming year? How much money will Meals receive in
donations each month of the year? All these questions and many more must be answered in
the process of developing the budgets for the organization.
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PART II Planning
Virtually all managers become involved in creating and using budgets. Budgeting is not the
sole domain of financial managers. Budgets establish the amount of resources that are avail­
able for specific activities. As we learn from economics, resources are not unlimited. They must
be used wisely. Organizations attempt to do this by planning the activities they will undertake
and how much they will spend on them. However, budgets do not merely limit the resources
that can be spent. They help the organization achieve its goals and objectives.
Budgets help the manager understand whether the organization expects that its financial
inflows will exceed its outflows and a surplus (profit) will occur, or if outflows will exceed
inflows, resulting in a deficit Ooss). If the latter is the case, the budget may indicate how the
organization plans to cover that deficit without having to cease operations. As discussed in
detail below, how those inflows and outflows are measured and timed may make all the differ­
ence in assessing an organization’s budgetary expectations.
Budgeting for governments as compared with budgeting for other types of public service
organizations is significantly different. It is common for decisions by the board of trustees of
a not-for-profit organization to require that the budget for the organization not show a deficit.
In carrying out the plan, however, many times a not-for-profit organization will actually spend
more than the amount in the approved budget, sometimes resulting in a deficit. For govern­
ments, however, by law the amount that is actually spent generally cannot exceed the budgeted
amount. As a result, governments tend to place more controls on spending, and the options
available to government managers are often more limited than those available to managers of
other types of organizations. Also, governments overwhelmingly focus their planning on cash
inflows and outflows, whereas not-for-profit organizations generally take a more comprehen­
sive approach to budgeting.
Often, balancing the budget results in limiting services provided. This is true for all kinds
of public service organizations. It is frustrating to managers to have to limit the amount of
services provided to the organization’s clients. However, it is worse to run out of money and to
have to stop providing any services at all. Failure to plan carefully can result in a level ofspend­
ing that exceeds an organization’s resources and leads to a financial crisis; in some instances,
the organization will even be forced to cease operations.
Special Purpose Budget
Although most organizations prepare broad annual budgets that are intended to include all
their activities for the year, at times a special opportunity may arise. An organization may wish
to consider undertaking an activity, but there is no money set aside for it in the annual budget.
This does not necessarily create an insurmountable roadblock. At any time during the year, a
special purpose budget can be developed for a specific project, program, or activity. The
organization can then decide whether it wishes to undertake the activity based on the proposed
special purpose budget.
For example, suppose that Steve Netzer, the new chief operating officer (COO) of the Hos­
pital for Ordinary Surgery (HOS), has an idea for a program that could help the public and
might generate additional patients for the hospital. He would like to send nurses to local super­
markets to offer free blood pressure screenings. The hospital would pay for the nurses and
the supplies. The costs of the nurses and supplies are expenses. Expenses are the resources
used or consumed in the process of providing goods and services. The hospital expects to earn
revenues from supermarket customers who become patients as a result of medical problems
uncovered by the screening. Revenues are the resources the organization earns in exchange for
providing goods or services.
Will the extra revenues from these new patients be enough to cover the expenses of care
provided to them as well as the expenses related to the screening? A special budget comparing
all the expenses and revenues can provide the information needed to answer this question.