Dennis Anosike, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), provided a financial briefing on Metro’s fiscal year 2018 (FY18) budget. The discussion began with a short recap of the fiscal year 2017 (FY17) budget. In FY17 the budget process was managed by Metro’s Board. To balance the budget, the Board opted to take a series of one-time options. This resulted in a balance budget with no fare increases. The GM proposed a 3 billion dollar budget to Metro’s Board for FY18. The Operating budget is 1.8B, and the Capital side of the budget is 1.25B. Compared to last year, the capital budget is approximately 250 million dollars higher, while the Operating budget is approximately 2% higher than last year. The CFO stated that the budget proposal by the GM is also a balanced; yet will require shared sacrifice from all stakeholders. …show more content…
The GM's budget is designed to address three major areas:reliability; safety; and fiscal responsibility. Mr. Anosike stated that Metro's Operating budget, includes the following reductions: 1) reduces staff by 1000 positions; 2) requires that customers contribute more for services on Metrobus, Metrorail, MetroAccess and parking; 3) and indirectly it impacts customers because it reduces service. Additionally, the GM’s budget directs the jurisdictions to provide an additional 130M. Together, these things are expected to yield an increase of 290M in overall funding and aid in balancing the budget. For some time, Metro has experienced low ridership on Metrobus and Metrorail. This is due to SafeTrack and other issues. Mr. Anosike reiterated his comments about the development of the FY18 budget. To balance the budget in a way that would be fair yet the least impactful to customers the GM submitted the Board a balance proposal FY2018 budget. In response to a question about who make the final decision, Mr. Anosike stated that the Board makes the final decision on the
The company should consider ethical aspects of the changes in original budget and actual sales/amount. The main reason behind it is the variances in materials, labor, and overhead. In addition to this, the firm should evaluate the actual variance in the materials, labor, and overhead and after that change in budgets in order to maintain business ethics and to reduce improper changes in budget that is unethical aspect of the business (Delaney & Whittington, 2012).
Budget management analysis is used by mangers as a tool and helps determine that all resources available are being used efficiently. The budgets are determined yearly and are based upon the previous year’s budget and variances. This paper will discuss specific strategies to manage budgets within forecast, compare five to seven expense results with budget expectations, describe possible reasons for variances, give strategies to keep results aligned with expectations, recommend three benchmarking techniques, and identify those that might improve budget accuracy, and justify the choices made.
There are different types of budgeting that businesses typically use and those include Operating budgets, Capital Budgets and there are many subtypes that exist because a budget can also be created for special events, the recruitment and retention of new staff, and to manage the advertising expenses and return on investments for a business (Demand Media, 1999-2012). According to Demand Media (1999-2012), "An operating budget outlines the total operating expenses and income for the organization, typically for the period of a fiscal year. Capital budgets evaluate the investments and assets of the business, and a cash budget shows the predicted cash flow in and out of the business over a period of time” (para.2 ). According to the Cost-Benefit Analysis (2012), “Capital budgeting has at its core the tool of cost-benefit analysis; it merely extends the basic form into a multi-period analysis, with consideration of the time value of money. In this context, a new product, venture, or investment is evaluated on a start-to-finish basis, with care taken to capture all the impacts on the company, both cost and benefits. When these inputs and outputs are quantified by year, they can then be discounted to present value to determine the net present value of the opportunity at the time of the decision” ("Cost-Benefit Analysis," 2012).
Investopedia defines Budget as an "estimation of the expenses and revenues over a specific future period of time. Budgets can be made for a group of people, family, person, country, business, government, organization or anything else that makes or spend money. The budget is a micro economic concept that shows the trade-offs made when one good is exchange for another." When looking at the year 9 budget for CB first thing that jumped out at me was the sales goal of 3510 is a 5247450. This is my first immediate concern considering that the storyline has clearly stated it is a down market due to the
This research paper is a brief discussion of budget management analysis. Budgeting is the key to financial management, and is the key to translates an organization goals or plan into money. Budgeting is a rough estimate of how much a company will need to get their work done, and provides the basis for evaluating performance, a source of motivation, coordinating business activities, a tool for management communication and instructions to employees. Without a budget an organization would be like a driver, driving blinded without instructions or any sense of direction, that’s how important a budget is to every organization and individual likewise (Clark, 2005).
This strategy helps us cover the revenue shortfall. Based on the spreadsheet the compensation categories, including salaries and wages, account for 60% of the spending reductions. As a matter of fact, we hired 10,000 employees in 2015 with the high salary, which caused the revenue shortfall. Now, we need to reduce our employees number to 9000 to cover the revenue shortfall. We know how difficult this news may be, but we know that we have to act under cost savings in the coming months and years. I believe that this budget is a vital and responsible action in the short time to manage the immediate required budget shortfall as well as enable us to prepare for the uncertainties of the
Capital planning and budgeting is a very vital piece in the Public Budgeting System process. It is an essential implement in the financial management practice and is effective in both public and private organizations. It is the method which consists of the determination and the evaluation of the investments and the possible expenses by an organization. As explicate by Lee, Johnson, & Joyce (2008), capital budgets help in determining how much of each form of investment is needed, and it supports an organization in assessing the available revenue which includes loans is required to finance those investments (p. 475). Capital budgeting is a central part of the universal
Describe the budget process and how staff members at the unit level impact the budget.
The manager must remember that the budget is completed with a goal in mind. All employees should be aware of the budget and how it ties to the ultimate goals or plans for that department (Walsh, 2016). This budget should have a strategy and effectively communicate the department goals. The manager should take the long-range plan to build the annual budget with this plan in mind (Finkler, 2017).
4. The master budget consists of three major groups of budget components: the operating budgets, the capital expenditures budgets, and the financial budgets.
A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496) The budget is a method in which to reign-in discretionary spending, and will likely show variances between what costs have been anticipated and what costs are actually incurred.
Most entities and organization create budgets as a guide for controlling its spending, prediction of profit, and it expenditure as they progress toward a set goal. Budget involves pulling resources together to achieve a specific goal. According to Gapenski (2006), budgeting is an offshoot in a planning process. A basic managerial accounting tool use in holding planning and control functions together is referred to as set of budgets (p. 255). One major setback manager or budget developer encounter is trying to design a future, a process that cannot be created with the precision just right. This article highlights some financial management
Budgeting is crucial in the well-being of a company especially the financial health status of a company. In fact, no professionally managed firm would fail to budget, since the budget establishes what is authorized, how to plan for purchasing contracts and hiring, and indicates how much financing is needed to support planned activity. It is routine for a company to budget for its expenses. Expense budgets act as a guideline of how much revenue a company would require keeping the activities running. It is used to set the company’s targets for a certain period.
The 20’s century saw the use of budget involve due to a change in the environment. Indeed the control of output used to be obtained by the dissemination of tasks and so traditional budgets were very much highlighted, with a significant top-down influence. As an example of the importance of budget in the 1970’s IBM had about 3,000 people involved in their budgetary process. During the same period, the oil crisis brought concerns about rising in costs and led to the introduction of zero-based budgeting (ZBB), which can lower cost by avoiding blanket increases or decreases to a prior period’s budget. The increase in business uncertainties was in discrepancy with the stifling effect of fixed plans, promoting the use of rolling budgets. The 1990’s saw the growing influence of shareholders and steered the focus on a budget that included a wider view of organisation results, answering the investment community for quarterly updates on results and expectations (Bill Ryan, 2005). Budgets then started being used as a communication tool between the financial community and the organisation, allowing the corporation to be integrated in the capital market. Moreover companies started using flexible budgets rather than static budgets as nowadays various levels of activities can be observed in most organisations. The use of flexible budgets then enables firms to be consistent with their new environment and the market.
3. Budgets are prepared for the future period which is always uncertain. In future, conditions may change which will upset the budgets. Thus, future uncertainties minimize the utility of budgetary control system.