Search Our Essay Database

Essay Instructions: Class: Financial budgeting

Syllabus instructions for: Research paper

There are 2 parts to this assignment:
1. Each student is required to submit one research paper.

Individuals should discuss the topic selected in-depth (5-8 pages). And A 150-word abstract must be attached to the paper that outlines and highlights very briefly the topic and what is pertinent in the paper.
2. Submit a 1-2 page outline that briefly describes the topic and the approach taken to discuss and analyze the topic.
3. (word-processed, in 12-point Times New Roman font, spell- and grammar checked)
4. Number of sources required: 8

Please make sure that these Items are included:
In-depth 5-8 pages Research paper
150-word abstract
1-2 page outline

My topic: Budget Planning
Thank you; If any questions please e-mail me or call me.

Essay Instructions: I need "Self-Reflection essay " 500-700 words long.It should be about my writing experince while I was writing three of my papers which should eventually become one big paper (my final reaserch paper). Below you will find detailed explanation what should be included in that essay and below that, you will find all three of my papers so that you know what those three papers are about.

Self-Reflection Essay
Writing this essay will allow you to reflect on the shorter essays and the research paper you have written and your writing experience, as a whole, during the term.

Hints for writing this essay

Your essay should have a strong thesis and solid organization, with good transitions between ideas. When you write this essay, keep in mind that every statement must be supported with specific, relevant examples. It is not enough to say, I learned more about punctuation. If you want to discuss punctuation (or any other issue) be extremely specific.

Plan what you?re going to write. Consider writing an outline.
Consider how you?re going to organize your thoughts.
Write out your thesis before jumping into writing the body of the essay.
Use specific examples from your other essays to support your points. Quote them. Paraphrase them. Use them as evidence.
Leave time for revising and proofreading.
Questions this essay must answer

As you write this essay, please consider these questions. The instructor will expect you to cover all of them in the essay:

Which short essay (of the first three) did you feel was your best work? What elements of writing do you think made it your best work? For instance, did you feel a special connection to the topic or to the type of essay (explanation, evaluation, persuasion)? How did that help you to present and organize your work?
Describe how you brought together the first three essays when writing the research paper.
Do you feel you wrote a successful research paper? Why or why not?
As you went through the course, what writing concepts were new to you?
What concepts were you able to apply to your own writing, and what has been the effect? Quote your work as evidence.
How did the process of writing multiple drafts help your writing?
What aspects of your writing do you feel still need improvement, and what aspects do you feel you have improved?
Did you give your best effort? Why or why not?
Would others who are close to you believe that you have given your best effort? Explain.
Regardless of the grades you received, are you proud of the work you did in this class this term? Why or why not?
Management Budgeting

Budgeting is one of the fundamental concepts in managing a business and it is often up to the budgeting policies that the managers decides upon that will conclude if the company is going to make it in the industry or not. The budgeting policy a company decides upon will show the top management team where the money is being spent and, even more importantly, it will show the team prior to the spending actually occurring.
If we refer to the four management functions (organizing, planning, directing and controlling), budgeting covers all four of them. Indeed, a responsible manager will be able to apply all four functions in what the budgeting policy is concerned.
First of all, the top management will need to determine what the company?s budget for the future period of time will be. This will need to take into consideration both the company?s possible revenues during this time and the expansion strategy that the team has decided upon. It may be the case that the management team has designed an expansion on the market that will take up more of the resources than otherwise. While this may be the case, the spending must be determined by realistic plans and future achievements.
Second of all, the top management team needs to organize the portfolio of projects and the investments it wants to develop in the subsequent period of time. Before the actual spending and investing begins, the company needs to have an organized set of future spending.
Drmanovic 2
The planning functions intervene in terms of properly determining the evolution of projects? costs in the period to come. Budgeting helps plan projects? costs so that we don?t arrive at a situation where the company?s finance is overwhelmed by costs during a period of time.
In terms of directing, budgeting ensures that the funds are used where they are most necessary. The controlling function ensures that the budget and the budgeting policies, previously established and decided upon, are fully respected. There is no point in having a healthy financial system within the company, corresponding to a well-planned budget, if this budget is regularly underestimated or overspent.
As we have seen from those previously presented, the budgeting function within the company is not only intrinsically linked to management, but the main functions of management are also reflected in a company?s budgeting policies.
A healthy budgeting strategy will lead to a healthy financial situation of the company and a solid development strategy for the future. Budgeting should be where every company strategy should begin.

Paper2
Budgeting is not really something that should be discussed, but rather something that every company should be using in order to properly evaluate its financial possibilities, as well as to plan ahead the company?s financial spending and investments, corroborated with any financial liabilities.
As analysts have pointed out, a budget is simply a tool to increase your consciousness of how and where you spend your money and a guideline to help you spend your money on the things that are most important to you. These two components of a budgeting definition should be showing us why budgeting is so important and why everyone should be opting for it.
So, budgeting greatly helps with two different components. One of them is the fact that it shows where the money is actually going. In other words, the company using a budgeting tool will know exactly the expenses it has assumed, as well as any investments it has committed to during a certain period of time.
Furthermore, the budgeting tool is essential in determining projects which are actually essential for the company, in other words, projects which bring added value to the company. The logic behind this is quite simple: after determining how much you are
actually willing to spend during an investment or financial period, you need to decide what you want to spend the money on. Budgeting helps here as well and, additionally, it
Drmanovic2
shows you how you can actually carry out the other projects which do not fit on the initial list. Budgeting should be considered a long-term strategy, with all the implications this brings about. In this sense, we should point out towards the fact that budgeting shows a concern for the long-term evolution of the company, projects that could bring significant revenues in the future.
Nevertheless, we may consider some of the negative implications that budgeting could bring about in the company. One of these refers to any long-term projects, where the initial evaluation did not lead to the expected result. We may have, in this sense, projects that have been included in budgeting schemes, projects for which money has been allocated and which, in time, do not achieve the expected results and returns.
While such an evaluation may be true, this does not deny the fact that a large proportion of projects that have been included for the budgeting evaluation will have resulted in good returns for the company. Additionally, project which are not successful do not necessarily reflect a bad budgeting strategy, so they should not be considered an evaluation tool.
Overall, we may point out towards the fact that a proper and well-worked budgeting strategy is bound to bring about a healthy and successful financial situation within the company.



Fowles, Deborah. Guilt-free Budgeting: No Blame, No Shame. About ? Financial Planning. On the Internet at
http://financialplan.about.com/cs/budgeting/a/GuiltFreeBudget.htm
Fowles, Deborah. Are Budgets for Sissies? About ? Financial Planning. On the Internet at
http://financialplan.about.com/cs/budgeting/a/BudgetsSissies.htm

Paper3
?One of the most important functions that budgeting accounts for is the planning function?(ppt#1). We will be arguing for the importance of the planning function in the overall budgeting activity and will be arguing for the many ways the budgeting planning function is coordinating with the company?s strategic planning.
First of all, the planning function in terms of budgeting refers to the planning activities that the company, starting with the financial department, needs to (1) determine what the company?s long-term strategy is, (2) determine what projects bring most added value to the company and (3) determine what priority these projects should have.
Let?s refer to each of these steps in part and determine how they impact the budgeting strategy of a company. The long-term strategy for a company is
essential in determining the overall objective of a company. For the long run, this may be increasing the volume of sales or increasing the market share or promoting the company?s image. In any case, these differ in terms of the projects they will imply and the ways they will be affecting the budgeting strategy.

Drmanovic 2


For example, increasing sales will perhaps only include increasing spending on advertising and the promotion budget, while promoting the company?s image may include costly promotion campaigns that will have a significant impact on the company?s budgeting management.
The second issue is a project portfolio management issue. The economic theory tells us that the resources are always limited, while the needs are not. Applied in this particular case, this means that we are always likely to have a greater number of projects we will wish to perform than the financial resources the company will have at a certain point.
This is where the selection issue, corroborated with the budgeting strategy comes in the game. The top management, working with the financial department, will need to establish which projects bring highest added-value to the company and to spend the company?s budget on those alone.
The selection phase can only come hand in hand with a proper planning of the budgeting activity. On one hand, we have the projects the company wishes to perform, on the other, we have the budgeting restrictions. In terms of budgeting planning, the company and the top management needs to ensure that
the projects deriving from the current selection will also have sources of financing. We will simply take a software project. In the beginning, the primordial activities refer to selecting the working team and creating a project on which work will be done (following the customer?s requirements). On the other hand, while the initial part of the project is strictly related to the programming stage, one must not ignore the fact that, after the project is completed, a tester also needs to be hired in order to test the project?s performances. This means that the initial budgeting scheme will need to be created so as to include several other subsequent factors, factors that are likely to appear at a certain time in the future.
Finally, the third phase of the selection phase, correlated with the budgeting procedures, involves deciding on the projects? priority. This is basically an issue of deciding which of the projects bring added value to the company and to the company?s activities. This means that planning your budgeting policy also needs to consider the future plans in the company. If the company will want to develop different areas into the future, then the budgeting campaign needs to be designed so as to cover any future needs of the company. This is practically what the planning function in terms of budgeting refers to.
The argumentation we have previously presented practically comes forth so as to demonstrate the close connection existing between budgeting and budget planning and the company?s overall planning strategies. Indeed, the budgeting policies serve to help the company fulfill its long-term plans and projects, as well as short-termed ones. In this sense, the company planning

Drmanovic 4

strategy needs to be fully correlated with the budgeting planning, otherwise there will be no financial support for those plans.
Among the management functions we already know about we can also include the budgeting function because, in my opinion, all the others cannot properly function without it. You cannot have a successful planning or organizing within a company without correlating these with the budgeting function, in order to obtain the realistic backup of any project.
Budgeting and planning go, in this sense, hand in hand, and you cannot really have one without the other in the company.




The Training and Technical Assistance Division. Budgeting Techniques. On the Internet at http://www.tcada.state.tx.us/training/presentation/ppt/BudgetingTechniques.ppt#1

Essay Instructions: Municipal Budget Project Paper Guidelines

Budgets are intended to address a number of different purposes including management and control, communication to different constituencies, goals, past successes, philosophy of the public entity, and to explain the functions of the various departments, etc. Also, public administration professionals must be able to analyze the financial health of an entity by examining the budget. Assess how well available budget documents and auxiliary information address each of these functions. The assessment needs to be substantiated with examples and information from documents studied.

You may use a variety of resources for this project. You will want to start with the most recent year’s approved budget. You may use accounting reports for information; however, you will want to base your budget figures off of the budget book as accounting detail does not provide the line items for personnel, ERE, supplies, travel, etc. You may also use department website information, other reports, laws/rules, a recommendation book if available may provide additional detail, interviews with city/department staff, or other relevant sources.

The paper should include, at a minimum, answers to the following sections and specific questions. There is no specific page requirement for the paper; however, “A” papers are typically approximately 20 pages, double-spaced. The paper must be in APA format.

? By the date designated in the syllabus you must submit via the course assignments tool:
1) the municipality you have chosen for your project
2) the specific department or program for parts 2, 3, & 4
3) the link to the main budget document online or how you acquired the hard copy

Part One ??" General Overview:

1. Introduction: Provide a brief historical background on the city and future projections for growth. What was the population change during the past year; five years; ten years?
2. Expenditures: What are the five largest operating expenditure categories by subject/service area (i.e. social services, protection, recreation, public works, etc) and the respective amounts?
3. Revenues: What are the major sources of revenues (include amount and percentages) for the overall budget? How much have local taxes increased during the past year; five years; ten years?
4. Enterprise Activities: What are the major enterprise/proprietary funds (self-funded services ??" such as water, solid waste, trash collection, etc.) and the total revenues and expenditures involved in enterprise activities?
5. Municipal Debt: What was the total cost of debt service (annual payment)? What is the total bonded indebtedness and the overall per capita debt? Provide bond ratings.
6. From your analysis, what seems to be driving the real (above inflation) increases in the annual expenditure budgets, and what future budget issues have you identified(issues such as growth, increasing health care costs, infrastructure needs, federal/state mandates, etc. may play a role here)?

Part Two ??" Budget Reduction Exercise (Select one department or specific program of the city that is primarily funded from the General Fund if possible for Parts 2, 3, & 4. In this section, you will develop a 10% operating budget reduction proposal for your selected department or program.):

1. As a point of introduction for Parts 2, 3 & 4, provide a brief overview of the department or specific program within the city that you have chosen.
2. Using a table, present the current budget then develop a budget planning scenario in which you make a 10% reduction in the operating budget for the coming fiscal year.
3. What specific strategy or method of prioritizing the necessary budget cuts did you use? Present and defend your reasoning; it would be useful to refer to the course readings/theory to support your process.
4. Discuss any projected loss in services and identify the primary and secondary impacts to the citizens of the budget reduction.

Part Three ??" Budget Request (Using the same department/program for the budget reduction exercise, write a budget proposal for an increase in the budget. This need not be a 10% increase ??" it can be any amount, but should address a specific problem or issue as explained below. Remember that only persuasive budget requests get funded, so be clear, concise and help policy makers understand what they will be getting for the additional funds.):

1. Describe the problem or issue that the increase of budget will address (new service to be offered, increase customer service, etc. ??" you may be creative, but try to be relatively realistic). Be sure to develop a problem or issue to address here, do not simply reverse the budget cuts you implemented in Part 2.
2. Describe how the proposed budget increase will specifically address the problem or issue.
3. What alternatives to address the same problem or issue were reviewed before selecting this specific budget increase? (Considering alternatives is vital to a strong argument as it will help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of your own proposal ??" do not shirk this step.)
4. Using the budget format of your program, develop a line item budget for the increases.
5. What specific performance measures will be used to measure the success of this increase?


Part Four ??" Evaluating How a Program Measures Success (Using the same department/program, again, please answer the following questions in 1-2 paragraphs ??" maximum ??" for each question):

1. Does the program (again, this is for the dept/program with which you are working, not the entire city) have clearly defined mission statement and goals that are easily understood?
2. Does the program have clearly defined performance measures to indicate success in achieving the goals and the mission?
3. Are the numbers used for the performance measure meaningful and easily understood by the average citizen?
4. Discuss whether the program mission, goals, and performance measures clearly meet the citizen’s demands for results.
5. What suggested changes would you recommend to this program’s mission, goals, and performance measures?

I would like to use the follow:
National Park Service
Funding has been and continues to be a challenge for NPS. World War II had presented challenges for the NPS. Director Newton Drury had been faced with the task of protecting the nation’s parks from those who wanted to use their resources for the war efforts he was besieged by many committee who wanted to use historic cannons for scrap metal, he managed to keep the parks intact. Even so the war years took their toll on the parks. Tight budgets left the NPS unable to adequately maintain facilities; and with the return on peace and the subsequent increase of travel, the parks’ problems became painfully evident. The affordability of automobiles allowed the middle class a newfound mobility, visitation to national parks swelled, overwhelming run-down facilities. On June 26, 1956, in the midst of the Cold War, Congress passed the Federal Aid Highway Act, approving the creation of a 41,000-mile highway system to improve military mobility. These new roads meant that travel and, consequently, park visitation were sure to increase even more (Lee).
The challenges that Director Newton Drury faced during WWII are the same challenges many of the NPS Directors faces today. On March 17th 2010, NPS Director Jarvis told members of a House Subcommittee that “difficult economic times call for creativity, Director Jarvis told members of a House subcommittee when he presented the bureau’s 2011 budget request.” (inside.nps.gov). The $ 2.73 billion budget proposal for the National Park Service is $22 million less than the 2010 appropriations, “a fact of these economic times,” Jarvis said. “we will be creative to meet the needs of Park visitors, protect resources, and continue our partnerships that help revitalize communities through local recreation and historic preservation projects. “This budget supports our mission,” Jarvis said in his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies (Ibid).
Agency funding. The primary source of revenue used to fund the NPS is the general population- taxes, make donations, and pay fees to visit the various parks. In fact, fees collected from park visitors under FLREA have increased NPS annual revenue by tens of millions of dollars. Another important source of funding for the NPS is its partners. Partner organizations-such as the congressionally mandated National Park Foundation and any number of other independent national, state, and local organizations-conduct fundraising activities designed to support individual parks and the Service as a whole.
The development of a budget is multi-staged. It starts at the park, then moves through several levels of review and approval before finally being passed into law. As the budget request moves through the various levels of development, it “snowballs.” That is, the park unit budget becomes part of the regional budget, which in turn becomes part of the total NPS budget, and so forth. At each level, the budget is also subject to modification, as politicians, partners, and special interest groups lobby for how federal money should be allocated or used. It can take more than 20 months to prepare a budget for any given fiscal year. Thus, at any given time the NPS is working on three separate budgets: two in the proposal stages, and one that is being enacted. “As a consequence of the blurred authority, heads of federal agencies, unlike their counterparts in industry, cannot set the level of their agencies’ budgets. Rather, budgets must be submitted to department heads, who submitted them in turn to the Office of Management and Budget, which submits them in turn to the president, who in turn submits them to Congress (Grover, 2008, 13).

References:
The National Park Service. (2002, March). Retrived November 2010, from U.S. History.com http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1605.html
Grover, S. (2008). Managing the Public Sector. New York: Paulist Press.

Essay Instructions: Facility Planning for Long-term Care Facility ? Part II
Topic: Long-Term Care Renovation Escondido Hospital.
I am requesting this writer to write this paper.
Writer?s Username: obsidiankc
The facility selected is the long-term care facilities at Escondido Hospital, who recently did a wide-spread renovation to its long-term care facilities.

Write a 1,100 word paper on Long-term care Facility / Renovation for Elderly (not including title and references pages) that describes the following elements:
1. Regulatory requirements and their effect on the design and equipment.
2. Color selection implications and noise issues.
3. List of the type of equipment needed.
4. Electronic items needed.
5. Examination of budget planning and cost estimates.
6. Description of the role of stakeholders in facility planning and development.
7. Gantt chart that details an implementation plan.

The paper must be laid out with effective use of headings, font styles and white space.
The paper?including the title page, reference page, tables, and any appendixes?is consistent with APA guidelines 6th edition as directed by the facilitator.
The conclusion is logical, flows from the body of the paper, and reviews the major points.
Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed; spelling is correct.

Please use the references below, which are cited appropriately in the body of your paper and on your references page
References
Fried, D. (2005, July 29). PPH rolls out renovation plan for Escondido hospital Page 1 of 2 ## UTSanDiego.com. San Diego News, Local, California and National News ## UTSanDiego.com. Retrieved September 5, 2013, from http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2005/Jul/29/pph-rolls-out-renovation-plan-for-escondido/
Hayward, C. (2006) Healthcare facility planning. (1st ed.) Chicago, IL: Health
Administration Press.