Executive Summary
Atlanta, the most populous city and capital of the state of Georgia is also known for being the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country. The City has faced some extreme economic challenges over the past several years, but it is now successfully entering its comeback stages. The City’s restoration is due in part to its conservative budgeting practices and procedures and its commitment to restore the financial sanctity back to the City. Thanks to the vision and leadership of the current Mayor Kasim Reed, the City has been able to pass resourceful, balanced budgets and establish a sizeable cash reserve that has helped to create a manageable debt burden with limited future borrowing plans.
The following report will review the City of Atlanta’s budget development process and the responsibilities behind budget administration and management. The City’s spending transparency and internal control standards will also be detailed. A brief budget analysis will be conducted that will evaluate its revenue and expenditure sources and trends over the past few years and how forecasting helps to evaluate the City’s future revenue needs. Last, any fiscal challenges to the entity relating to long-term outstanding debt obligations, the City’s financial ratings and its pension obligations will be discussed. The comparisons take place for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012 and June 30, 2011. The presentation of the information will give a synopsis of Atlanta’s fiscal condition from the past, present and future and any weaknesses the City has to work on moving forward.
Introduction
The City of Atlanta’s budget has a comprehensive process that pledges the city will have a balanced budget that maintains the necessary ...
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...wth. The City is aware of these challenges and will continue to resolve them as efficiently as they have other obstacles.
Conclusion
Despite the aforementioned challenges, Atlanta is on its way back to fiscal. Based on both the revenue and expense analysis, budget development and financial management processes the City of Atlanta is making a very stringent effort to ensure fiscal sustainability. The City has made significant progress in the past three years and its financial position is continuously improving; however, continual progress will not occur without fiscal discipline and long-term strategies requiring proactive decisions and actions over multiple years. From the strides the City has made so far, the current City management is committed to accomplishing the Mayor’s priorities and providing clear and transparent reporting of its financial activities.
If I were Holbrook my initial goal would be to correct the water and sanitary sewer systems problem. I believe it is the community responsibility to pay for the up-keep and maintenance of the two facilities, because it is the community who is reaping the benefits of these facilities. I would recommend the council to combine the sewer (330,800) and water (158,090) expenditures to the sewer (113,000) and water (379,350) capital program expenditures, and incorporate the two as one revenue fee. This would allow the revenue fees to pay for the operating cost and the reconstruction cost of the two facilities. Making them one fee would give the council more leeway in increasing total revenue cost for these services. In general, people tend to see one bill instead of two as a deal instead of a problem. This is almost like the buy one get one free philosophy; you know the store has raise the price of the item you are purchasing so that you are paying for the item you’re getting free. The propose revenue fee would total 648,170. The 700 water customers and the 3000 sewer customers would pay for this fee. Assuming that the 700 water customers were already included in the 3000 sewer customers, the total customer for the two services would equal 2300. I would divide the total re...
The new public management states that, “cities are growing more and more like corporations referring to citizens as customers in the sense that they are providing product or goods (services) to the customer (taxpayers).” This had led to an increased demand for better quality at the lowest cost to the taxpayer. When looking at cost saving and alternative delivery municipalities must make a hard decision when choosing to contract out essential services.
Throughout the history of Richmond Hill, the city has experienced everything from failure to success and tragedies to victories. Today, Richmond Hill is a peaceful suburb located in southern Bryan County. Positioned within a 30-minute radius of Savannah, Richmond Hill offers a wonderful convenience to the nearby metropolitan city. This coastal town is home to more than 10,000 people. Richmond Hill’s community has an excellent reputation with great schools and education opportunities and a low crime rate. The schools of Richmond Hill persistently exceed the standards given by the state and are ranked in the top 5% in SAT scores. Richmond Hill’s eye-catching natural beauty just adds to the exquisiteness of the city.
The following report is an analysis of the financial condition of the Town of Chapel Hill, and focuses primarily on the General Fund. The analysis draws upon the information given by the 2010-2011, 2011-2012, & 2012-2013 Budget Documents, as well as the 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2011-2012, 2012-2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR). This paper provides an overview of the governance structure and the organizations who are responsible for fiscal supervision. Also covered are the cash solvency, budgetary solvency, and long-term financial condition. The conclusion will discuss the implications of Chapel Hill’s fin...
Metro Atlanta is on a collision course with reality – and the shock of this collision will have profound political and economic implications for future growth throughout the Southeast. The core problem is that Atlanta’s runaway growth will soon outstrip the available water supply (Corps, 1998). And if Atlanta continues to increase its water consumption until the maximum limits are reached, the effects on downstream users will become catastrophic, both economically and environmentally.
The Australian Budget is an annually published document which details the Federal Government's plans to affect the level of economic activity, resource allocation, and income distribution through the use of fiscal policy. It describes the framework which the government intends to follow during the next financial year which will result in the attainment of their objectives. The budget is a publication of the government's plans regarding the use of fiscal policy, and is published to parliament and the general public on “budget night”, so as to allow open dissemination about the status of public finances and to promote transparency in Australia's fiscal policy.
MARTA provides economic benefits to the state and national economy. The University of Georgia conducted a study and concluded that MARTA is responsible for about 2.6 billio...
The city’s budget crisis was not a surprise, the City Manager had forecasted the shortfall and brought it to the attention of the city council. Based on the organizational structure, the City Manager clearly had more knowledge and information about the city’s budget, which was his source of power. However, the city council actually controls the resources (money in this case) and how and where to distribute the resource. Both, the City Manager and city council possess authority and power that neither want to relinquish; as a result, the employees suffered. Smithville city leaders needed to come together at the onset of the budget crisis and work together in a direct democratic fashion. When leaders come together and synthesize facts and resources, organizational members can increase the power they exert within an organization (Morgan, 2006). The budget crisis could potentially have been avoided had city leaders made an appeal to the public, explained the situation and offered a reasonable solution to the problem. Moreover, the transparency would have relieved some tension between the City Manager, city council, and the three labor unions. Because the city was not transparent and forthcoming with union leaders, the city negotiators enter the negotiation process giving members false hope of receiving salary and benefit increases when there were none to give. In summary, given the current situation, the City Manager needed to exert his expert power on the budget issue, join alliance with the union leaders, and push the city council to change city charter to implement the sales tax, which would have potentially off-set the budget
Atlanta, GA, is one of the most exciting cities in the nation. Not only is it one of the most populated cities, but it has one of the largest metropolitan areas as well. This city is a fantastic option for those making the move to Georgia for a number of reasons. If you are considering a move to Atlanta, here are some things you will want to know.
This article is about the city of Camden and how they went from being a thriving city to a city that is now in economic crisis. The city has a population of 70,390 and is the poorest city in the nation (16). Camden has an unemployment rate of 30-40% and has an average household income of 24,600 (16). In the past Camden was an industrial giant with several large companies like Campbell’s soup and RCA having factories there, which employed 36,000 people (17). Closing of the factories is one of the main reasons for Camden Counties' high unemployment rate. Over the past few years Camden has been forced to make “$28 million in draconian budget cuts, with officials talking about cutting 25 percent from every department, including layoffs of nearly half the police force” (16). With the lack of funds the counties education system is beginning to suffer with them having to cut the library rate by 2/3, now they have a“70 percent high school dropout rate, with only 13 percent of students managing to pass the state’s proficiency exams in math” (16).With all of the empty factories, empty houses, and vacant lots Camden is beginning to become a very unappealing and unhappy place to live.
The Chicago Public School District is the third largest school district in the United States educating around 400,000 students. Back in 1987 CPS was named “the worst in the nation”(). Moving its way up to the top, since then, CPS had completely rebuilt its structure, appointing leaders and reformed ideas. Now, with a deficit projected to be around $1 billion CPS is headed back in a downwards path, money being the biggest issue. The United States Federal Government already has financial issues of its own, which makes dealing with a CPS budget a problem within a problem. CPS, with a $6.6 billion FY2013 budget, is now taking a new strategy based upon a flawed “Student-Based Budgeting System”. The Board of Education is also struggling to solve the debt they have reached, and with their FY2014 plans this year’s budget book is argued to be “one of the most poorly written budgets”(). The way CPS is handling their budget is not benefiting the lives and education of students and is leaving CPS at a loss with giant financial issues.
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.
In the documentary, “Cleveland: Confronting Decline in an American City” the short movie analyses the great risk confronting Cleveland as a city as result of deterioration and dilapidation of the urban core. The documentary discusses factors that are responsible for this problem and possible solutions; as this has become a phenomenon, not just in Cleveland but other major US cities. The issue of the urban decline in most cities cuts across people, commerce, and the economy in general. However, the questions of how most cities arrived at their current predicament, consequences of abandoning these concerns, and what can be done to reverse the bad situation, remain unanswered.
International City Management Association. Service Delivery in the 90's: Alternative Approaches for Local Governments: Washington D.C.: International City Management Association, 1989.
Our cities are not what they used to be. Over the corse of fifty years the once proud, strong, and viable hubs of American economic prowess are but a shell of what they were built for. The problems that many cities have are no longer condensed to their city limits and the sprawl that was created over that fifty year period is now threatening to enter the suburban spaces that were created when the city’s citizens left. The metro sprawl is starting to loose it’s attractiveness and unless there is more acknowledgment of the problems creeping out of these cities, the same declining trends will create unoccupied commercial and residential districts not unlike the downtowns of many American cities. Without careful discussion about these trends and our communities embracement of a more regional approach, then there will be more problems in less dense suburban areas, making those problems hard to correct. In order to prevent the spread of this urban blight and avoid low occupancy rates, communities must implement regional tax policies, plan for more effective use of space, and encourage smart growth.