Indiana Budget Analysis

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

The budget process for each year begins by examining how much was spent each month. For each month, a budget is created for the following year. Staff members at the unit level impact the budget with supply usage.

The Commissioners Court is required to adopt a final budget by no later than the close of the calendar year. This annual budget serves as the foundation for the County’s financial planning and control. The budget includes appropriations for the general fund, certain special revenue funds, debt service funds, and proprietary funds. The budget is prepared by fund, function, department, and object codes. Transfer of appropriations between departments requires the approval of Commissioners Court.

The government has the Autumn Statement in October where the government announces its spending plans and the Budget in March which states any tax changes. The budget provides private businesses tax changes which will directly affect them. The autumn statement will indicate the amount of money being spent which could affect the changes in the budget in March.

In outlining a budget there are two phases that must be determined to create a budget, an operating phase and a financial phase. “Developing a new operating budget starts with examining budgets from previous years and identifying what components are going to change, by how much and if any new components need to be added or existing ones reduced or cut” (Budget Challenges, 2012). In the first phase of the budget it needs to be determined how much money is going to be needed to operate the day to day activities of the business.

The U.S. government budget is made up of different content that present financial proposals from the President with advised importance for ration of revenue from the local government. More importantly, the budgets focus being the budget year. This is the next budgetary year where changes would have to be made by Congress. The budget not only covers the present year, but the next 4 years after the budget year to be able to resonate the outcome of budget verdicts past the extended term. This includes funding zones given for the present year in order for the reader to be able to make a comparison of Presidential budget propositions and the newest executed zones. Here the President starts the lengthy procedure of creating a budget by means of policy guidelines, at least 9 months prior sending his budget proposal off to Congress. Following the guidelines, the Budget Office along with Federal agencies create a policy for the present and future budget years.

The federal government and states each have budgets that outline the amount of money that will be collected from taxes, how much will be spent in revenues, and what programs will receive money allocated to them from these expenditures. Every fiscal year, the federal budget and state budgets are reset so that they start from October 1st until the end of September of the following year. The federal government’s budget contains allocations for health care, pensions, education, defense, and welfare. The State of Colorado’s budget contains expenditures allocated to education, health care, pensions, protection, transport, and welfare (Chantrill, 2015). The

The revenue that the government receives is reduced from deductions, credits, and various forms of tax breaks, Each year, the government decides between revenues to collect and what expenditures to make in pursuit of their policy priorities. The budget process begins early, sometimes up to a year and a half before the report is due the next fiscal

Committees submit views and estimates to Budget Committees. (Frequently, the House Budget Committee sets own date based on Legislative Calendar)

The State of New York’s budget process involves six phases namely: The Call; The Executive Budget; Public Hearings; Legislative Amendments; Enactment Phase; and Implementation Phase. The budget process or cycle formally begins after the budget director issues the memorandum policy referred to as “The Call Letter” to heads of agencies. The Call Letter marks the official commencement of the budget process and starts at August and last through to October. As the early-mid fall approaches, each agency assembles a final program package and is then send to the Budgetary Division. By the time December starts, the budgetary division normally has completed the preliminary commendations for both the revenues and expenditures, and subsequently presents them to respective Governor Office (New York State Government, n.d.).

125). Preparation, approval and implementation are the main steps in the development of public budgets. First the preparation must be begin with the issuance of instructions from the executives, followed by the development of department budgets by the department managers. Once all departmental budgets are completed, they are sent to the central budget office for final review and revision before being sent to the elected officials for approval. Approval is issued by the elected officials after any necessary deliberations take place. Once approved by the elected officials, the budget is considered law and must be followed. The next step is implementation. The budget is constantly implemented as funds are released over the course of the year, reviewed for appropriate use and to verify the budget is in line with projections. Finally the budget must be reviewed at the end of the year by the budget office. A comparison is made between actual figures and budgeted figures. The information gathered in this final step is used in helping to determine future budgets (Bartle, Hildreth, & Marlowe, 2013). There are two major challenges to balancing public budgets. The many actors (e.g. CEO, CFO, department heads, staff, etc.) involved in the development of a public budget and span many departments, and many units in one department making the meeting and negotiating process difficult. Due to the many constraints of policy and the law, the budget process can be long and arduous with four steps stretched into many. These are a few of the many challenges involved in developing a balanced public

All departments of the City are required to submit requests for appropriation to the Finance Department on or before the first week of January each year. The Finance Department uses these requests as the starting point for developing a proposed budget. The government’s manager then reviews this proposed budget and makes adjustments to be presented to the Council at the annual budget retreat held at the beginning of March. The Council then makes any suggestions or changes in programs and policy and instructs staff to provide a budget document by the end of April, sixty days prior to the beginning of the fiscal year ("City of North Myrtle Beach," n.d.). Council then holds a public hearing and as soon thereafter as possible, adopts a budget and passes a tax levy ordinance and such other ordinances as may be required for accounting and budgetary control ("City of North Myrtle Beach," n.d.). Budget-to-actual comparisons are provided in this report for each individual governmental fund for which an appropriated annual budget has been adopted ("City of North Myrtle Beach," n.d.).

The Nebraska State budget is set on a biennium basis. Since this is the case the budget will

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.

The budgeted income statement, cash flows, and balance sheet follow in order. The income budget relies on the revenue and expense forecast from the operating budget, while the budget cash flows are planned for financial and investment activities. A final component of the budget process, the projected balance statement, can be used to tie in all the budgeting dependencies. Once a budget has been prepared, evaluation can be expected before approval. Budgetary components may require several iterations before finalizing the organizational budget.