What is the difference between forecasting and planning? Do you know?
For budgets, while forecast should certainly be factored into any long term, or even short term plan, a decision based on a forecast is not a plan.
Unlike the weather, there are some forecast that you rely upon with a very high degree of certainty for a specific period of time.
Take the tax levy. It is pretty easy to calculate what the amount to be raised from taxes will be, actually for a significant number of years. The formula is pretty simple under prop. 2 1/2. Last years amount with actual new growth added to it, increased by 2 1/2 percent, plus estimated new growth.
Obviously the same needs to be tweaked each year to factor in actual new growth. That and the time of day shouldn't be off by more than a few ticks every say three to five years.
On the expenditure side, same concept applies to a bunch of stuff. You can forecast cost to a reasonable degree of certainty for a number of matters. Retirement funding is a real easy one quite frankly. Health insurance, should be but somehow isn't. Medicare tax payment, A whole bunch.
Salaries and some operating costs will always be a wild card. But believe it or not I digress.
My point is after you do you forecasts for revenue and expenditure, you subtract the expenditures from the revenue and you either have a positive or negative balance. This is where we seemingly get lost year in and year out in the budget process.
We allow projected deficits going forward to be the tail that wags the dog in our planning.
Now in the most basic, the most elementary level, one could call the idea that this year we hold back money for what will actually be two budgets from now to offset the shortfall then a "plan".
Might make sense so long as holding the money back this year doesn't create a shortfall this year and so long as it would be a "cure" rather than a band-aid on a gash.
I have to dig up some past research and update it a bit. But I think most people would be extremely surprised about which budgets have grown leaps and bounds and which haven't.
I will offer you this though. The biggest fundamental problem in this town, again boils down to structure and authority.
It needs to be changed. It really is that simple ... and that is simply all there is to say today. I am still practicing my counting to three, so it is best to end it here.
Be safe.
In a town budget just as a personal budget there are usually unexpected expenses that won't be in any forecast, but end up costing more than what would have been planned for anyway. I think all one can do is plan the best you can and don't spend beyond what you plan for.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we dont know what the plans are,they become evident when its to late to make the correct adjustments.Seems like most of the plans take care of the employees an leave the taxpayers on the outside looking in.The end results are the best laid plans ,but expenses beyond what we expect..
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