When first developing a budget, each city department has the first three months of the year to prepare their strategic plans and objectives. Ultimately, each department develops their budget requests, which is due on the second Tuesday in May. Upon each department crafting their budgets, from July through September, the Mayor’s office reviews and tweaks each budget proposal, resulting in an executive budget proposal being sent to the Common Council by September 22nd. Finally, the Common Council reviews the proposed executive budget, and must ultimately vote on the measure by November 14th. With DCD needing to articulate their expected expenditures and revenue for the next fiscal year, the need to have an accurate assessment within their own department is crucial. Furthermore, the grounds for developing an operating budget is necessary for knowing not only how many full-time employees a department will employ, but also their personnel and non-personnel for the next fiscal …show more content…
First, it should be noted that since Fiscal Year 2016 is not completed, I have calculated the average growth rate of the prior four fiscal years. Since the average growth rate between fiscal years 2012 and 2015 was 29.3%, the calculated number of tax foreclosed property that was sold and transferred is 685. Going back to Figure 2, the sale and transfer of property has been increasing each fiscal year, with the greatest increase occurring from Fiscal Year 2015 to Fiscal Year 2016. This shows us that there should be increases to the number of tax foreclosed properties that are either sold or transferred over the next few years. As a result, there should be an expected increase in Personnel expenditures. Looking back at the budget table, it is shown that from Fiscal Year 2012 to Fiscal Year 2016, Personnel Costs have increased steadily. Specifically, from Fiscal Year 2012 to Fiscal Year 2016, Personnel expenditures are expected to increase by $45,000, going from expenditures of $4.27 million to expenditures of about $4.23 million. Within Personnel costs, Salaries are expected to increase 2.85% or $68,000 from Fiscal Year 2012 to Fiscal Year 2016. Meanwhile, Non-Personnel costs are expected to increase at a far greater rate from Fiscal Years 2012 to 2016. They are projected to increase by 13.90% or $55,000. Within Non-Personnel expenditures, there are