Budgeting Question

[FB1138]

I am looking for some ideas. We have an operations budget and an equipment budget. The operations budget is in the red. What I need is to move items from one budget to the other. For example we rent our fire hydrant use and maintenance from our water dept. and it is paid out of the operations budget. My rational is that fire hydrants are apparatus therefore, it should be paid out of the equipment fund.

Any ideas?

[lvwrench]

It sounds as if the operations budget is in the red then something is not being accounted for or that the budget is not adjusted properly. The hydrant matter should stay in the operations arena. Equipment is the units and their related items such as hose, tools, fans and so on as directly relating to the equipment except that the maintenance is an operations item. Rather than shift things too much do a better job of costing and add monies to the appropriate area of the budget process.

Of course a good money person can always manage to transfer from one area to the other and make it look ligitimate.

[ChiefDog]

I am looking for some ideas. We have an operations budget and an equipment budget. The operations budget is in the red. What I need is to move items from one budget to the other. For example we rent our fire hydrant use and maintenance from our water dept. and it is paid out of the operations budget. My rational is that fire hydrants are apparatus therefore, it should be paid out of the equipment fund.

Any ideas?

First, ask your "bean counter" aka: Accountant what to do. I am no CPA but do know that they have rules they have to follow. The Village office manager is a CPA that I have to deal with. If you don't follow the rules the audit at the end of the year will show the questionable activity. You then stand the chance of making things look worse than just admitting , for example, the truck blew a motor and we had to fix it. We over spent, End of Story.

[FB1138]

Thank you both for your comments. Our "bean counters" don't want to change anything. Because that is the way we've always done it. I talked to another CPA and he said a lot of it is subject to interpetation. Our main reason for being in the red is the fact the millage and budget were developed for a part time department and we are now a combination department.

Again, thank you for your comments.