Summary
A financial plan is essential for laying out expenditures in a department for an upcoming quarter or fiscal year. It entails a budget that describes the available finances within a department and how they will be utilized within the upcoming year to cater to the various operations within the department. In the United States, each state has several departments which must operate within a financial plan designed to propel the state throughout a fiscal year. One of the U.S. states is Washington, home of the city of Acme, a rural village in Whatcom County. To operate effectively, the fire and emergency department must operate within a financial plan throughout the next fiscal year. Therefore, this paper explores an appropriate financial plan for the city of Acme, presenting supporting data visualizations and discussing relevant economic principles and drivers behind the suggested financial plan.
Departmental Financial Plan for the City of Acme for 2023
Choosing the Department
The City of Acme comprises various departments, but the financial plan herein focuses on the emergency sector. In this city, the emergency department is composed of the Metro Fire and Ambulance sections. Most of the department’s expenditure is distributed in the property taxes and property tax ambulance (Spieth, 2019). Therefore, to prepare a comprehensive financial plan, revenue allocated in these sections for the past three years, 2021, 2020, and 2019 are imperative since they will facilitate proper financial forecasting for the year 2023.
Metro Fire and Ambulance Department Financial Plan
Since most finances in the city are allocated based on past spending; historical budgeting will be applied to formulate the plan. In historical budgeting, the previous budgets will be examined. Then minor adjustments will be made based on the current trends, such as material cost shifts, inflation, and dynamic interest rates (Spieth, 2019). Therefore, the following table shows the financial activities for the fiscal years 2019 to 2020, 2020 to 2021, and 2021 to 2022.1
Table 1. Revenue for 2019 to 2020 Financial Years
Table 2. Appropriations for 2019 to 2020 Financial Years
Table 3. Revenue for 2020 to 2021 Financial Activity
Table 4. Appropriations for 2020 to 2021 Financial Years
Table 5. Revenue for 2021 to 2022 Financial Activity
Table 6. Appropriations for 2021 to 2022 Financial Years
Based on the above tables, the table below shows the financial plan for the years 2022 to 2023. This table was generated after the appropriations were forecasted to be around $970,100 from 2022 to 2023.
Table 7. Estimated Appropriations for 2022 to 2023 Financial Years
Table 8. Estimated Revenue for the Year 2022-2023
Economic Principles
People Face Tradeoffs
One of the most relevant economic principles to the financial plan for the city of Acme is People Face Tradeoffs which entails the expenses that the residents of Whatcom must incur to access emergency services in the county. The cost of emergency services in the United States has remained relatively high despite the efforts employed by the national government to bring the cost of accessing healthcare and other risk-related services (Rasch, 2019). Therefore, some residents of Whatcom County must incur financial expenses to access the appropriate emergency services from the city of Acme.
Governments Can Sometimes Improve Economic Outcomes
Governments play crucial roles in regulating operations and executing duties in the various departments within their territories. The main aim of the emergency department in the city of Acme is to ensure quality services are provided to people at affordable prices. Therefore, the government governing the city of Acme is responsible for ensuring that the emergency department in the city operates effectively and attains its goals and targets to the people. The government must ensure the necessary resources and facilities are provided for the emergency department in the city of Acme to be effective in its roles (Rasch, 2019). The government also allocates adequate finances to the department to acquire the necessary resources and facilities. In case of any unethical operations in the emergency department, the government intervenes and employs appropriate measures to solve any issues that might affect effective operations in the department.
The Standard of Living Depends on a Country’s Production
The extent to which a country provides emergency services to its people determines its living standards. For instance, the living standards in the United States largely depend on the extent to which the government can regulate the cost of accessing fire extinguishing services in the country (Spieth, 2019). In that case, the people’s living standard improves because of the ability to access emergency services at no charge. Similarly, the living standard in the city of Acme will depend on the ease of access to emergency services.
Drivers Behind the Suggested Financial Plan
Employee Performance
The performance of employees in any department determines the ability of the department to operate within its financial plan. Every financial plan sets the minimum acceptable level of performance of employees to enable a department to attain its goals and targets. Excellent performance of the employees in the department will enable the department to operate within its financial plan and budget (Spieth, 2019). The employees in the emergency department in the city of Acme must perform excellently to ensure that the sector succeeds in providing quality and timely emergency services to its people.
Cost of HR Per Employee
Typically, every employee in any organization works for salaries and other forms of financial benefits. When designing a financial plan for a department, the cost of paying the employees must be thoroughly discussed to ensure that the department does not incur losses (Spieth, 2019). The number of salaries allocated for each employee in the department also determines the financial plan a department can adapt to operate effectively.
Average Sales Price
The Metro and Emergency Services department in the city of Acme will depend on sales made by providing services to the residents. If the number of sales is high, the department will operate within its financial plan. However, if the number of sales is low, the department might be unable to work within its financial plan, which translates to financial losses for the department and the country.
References
Rasch, F. A. (2019). Basic principles: The short guide: Everything you need to know about economics. IJBMR.
Spieth, P., Schneider, S., Clauß, T., & Eichenberg, D. (2019). Value drivers of social businesses: A business model perspective. Long Range Planning, 52(3), 427-444.