Inside the Town Budget

Posted by
October 16, 2012

I sent this email to the Selectboard yesterday:

TOH Master Budget FY 12-13 FXF for 13-14 with categories

Here is a spreadsheet that takes last year’s budget and renders it as a table with a few additional fields to help report key facts. I did all this so that we can look at the budget from several different perspectives, not just the Fund by Fund, department-by-department perspective that has been traditionally employed. I reviewed this with Hunter and Andrew this afternoon and hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate some of these features and techniques in the spreadsheet we use to put together this year’s budget.
For those of you who know how to manipulate pivot tables, there is great power to analyze at your fingertips. A short tutorial follows. You are also welcome to call me with this open on your computer in front of you for impromptu assistance. Use my cell #, 369-0069.

If you aren’t familiar with pivot tables, you can start to see how they work by opening the spreadsheet, going to the Pivot tab, and looking for the + signs next to each expense area:
Here’s what you will see at the top:
+Wages, Salaries & Stipends  $  5,283,447
+Contract Services  $  1,984,131
+Benefits  $  1,843,505
+Equipment  $     530,045
+Supplies  $     517,025
+Bond Payments  $     258,433
+Property Insurance  $     219,933
+Fuel  $     217,663
+General Expenses  $     206,100
+Assistance  $     145,465

We can expand the Wages line to see what it contains by clicking on the + next to Wages and we will see:

-Wages, Salaries & Stipends +Salary  $  4,736,521
+Overtime  $     374,914
+Holiday Wages  $     129,512
+Stipend  $      23,500
+Temps  $      19,000

Note: the + / – signs mean “show me more” / “show me less” and not add / subtract

Now we can look into the Overtime and Holiday expenditures by clicking on the + signs next to them and we will see:
-Wages, Salaries & Stipends +Salary  $  4,736,521
-Overtime ANIMAL CONTROL/COMMUNITY SERVICE OFFICER  $           500
DISPATCH SERVICES (Regional)  $      25,000
DRUG TASK FORCE  $      12,877
EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES (Ambulance)  $      92,000
FIRE ADMINISTRATION  $     115,000
MACHINERY & EQUIPMENT (O&M)  $        2,222
PARKS MAINTENANCE  $               -
POLICE ADMINISTRATION  $      68,900
ROAD MAINTENANCE (Summer)  $        5,000
SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER  $           500
WINTER MAINTENANCE  $      52,915
YOUTH PROGRAMS  $               -
-Holiday Wages DISPATCH SERVICES (Regional)  $      16,900
DRUG TASK FORCE  $               -
FIRE ADMINISTRATION  $      64,575
POLICE ADMINISTRATION  $      48,037
SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER  $               -
+Stipend  $      23,500
+Temps  $      19,000
No real surprise — public safety departments account for 90% of overtime and holiday costs.
Have fun looking at this first pass. If you have any suggestions for recategorizing or adding additional descriptive fields let me know.
Upper Valley

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