Example Of Research Paper On Budget Overview

Introduction

The DHS agency is the Oregon’s primary agencies for helping Oregonians achieve independence and well-being by exploiting opportunities that protect, respect choice, empower, as well as preserve dignity of the Oregonians. The mission of DHS agency is to ensure that the less vulnerable in the society are not taken advantage of. The goal of the DHS agency is to provide direct services to more than one million Oregonians each year. The DHS agency has several departments just like other agencies. The departments range from human resource department, the finance department, management to several other small departments. The DHS agency was established in 1971. The services provided by this department include; abuse and neglect services, assistance services, children services, disability services and senior services.

Financial Summary
The DHS agency projects revenue based on some assumptions that are taken into account. The projected revenue amounts to $ 2,324,079, 235,991. This amount will come from the general fund revenue. There are other additional sources of revenue, and these include; donations, sales incomes, interest incomes, rent and royalties, administrative service charges and other selective charges. The agency will use about $1.3billion to cater for various expenditures as the agency will be providing various services to the people. This value is slightly higher compared to the value the agency spent last financial year. This increase is as a result of other additional services that the agency will seek to provide. (Obst, Christie, 2007)
Each department has approximated their budget. The Human resource budget is $ 30.1 million. This will take care of the salaries of the members as well as other services the department will offer. The management department budget is $ 21.3 million. Other smaller department’s budgets sum up to $ 29.7 million.

Funding

DHS funding will come from various sources such as; DAS Charges and Debt Service, Rent and Computer replacement fund, Shared services funding and the central and Program Design Supports. The values are as shown below:

DAS charges and Debt Services $ 60.22 million

Rent and Computer replacement funding $ 58.84 million
Central and Program Design Supports Funding $ 57.73 million
Shared Services Funding $ 87.97 million
Capital Projects
The various capital projects include; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the DHS modernization project. The SNAP program will consume a substantial amount of the budget. The DHS modernization project is aimed at making service delivery easier and less costly.

Debt Administration

The agency seeks to take a bank loan amounting to $ 2.4 million to help finance its proposed projects. The loan will be at an interest rate of 10% p.a. to be paid for three years.

Cost Analysis

The fixed cost at the start of this financial year was calculated to be $ 768,455,345 while the variable cost was found to be $ 345,700. The agency, however, has not given clear details about the step fixed cost in their budget. The fixed cost includes; rent, salaries, property taxes, utilities, depreciation, and amortization. These amount to $ 768,455,345 as earlier indicated.

Budget Challenges

The agency faced various budget challenges during the process of preparing the budget. One major challenge is the difficulty in estimating and balancing realities with decreased revenues, raised demands and costs of unfunded agency mandates. Another challenge that the agency faced is the dramatic and theoretical cost of infrastructure together with the associated costs. Another major problem of budget preparation is the limited resources that are expected to meet the unlimited needs. It was not easy to appropriately assign a specific amount of money to various departments and activities given the complexity of these entities. The ever changing challenges that the agency faces make it difficult to develop an effective budget. Underfunding seems to be the outstanding challenge. This under-funding results to expenses outpacing revenues by far. Similarly, these challenges faced by the DHS agency are also faced by other institution and organizations. (Clowels, Scriven, 2010)

Budget Recommendations

It is necessary to put into consideration various recommendations to help make the process of budget preparation less tiring and more effective. Collaboration between the players is required. Individuals working in the agency should collaborate with each other at the department level. The employees should also collaborate at the agency level. The collaboration will make it easier to access all the information necessary for preparing the budget. Economy of scale is another recommendation. By collectively purchasing various items required by the agency, the agency will spend less. It will be easier to balance the limited revenue and the expenses to be accrued. Finally, it is advisable for the agency to set aside a qualified team of budget developers. The qualified team has the necessary skills and experience needed to solve any problem that may present itself during the process of budget making. The qualified team will also not take much time to develop an appropriate budget given the experience. The budget determines the success or failure of an agency, selecting the most trusted people to do the job of developing a budget is thus important. (Jones, McCaffery, 2008)

Reference

Clowels. R, Vic Scriven, 2010. Budgeting: A Practical Approach. Pearson Publishers.
Jones. L, Jerry McCaffery, 2008. Budgeting and Financial Management. IAP Publishers.
Obst. W, Rob Graham Christie, 2007. Financial Management for Agribusiness. Landlinks Publishers.
Oregon.gov DHS 2015-17 Agency Request Budget (ARB) Message from DHS Director Erinn Kelley-Siel (2015) Retrieved from: http://www.oregon.gov/dhs/aboutdhs/dhsbudget/pages/index.aspx