The Firm provides professional services in the area of local government
budgeting and planning.
Practically all of the firm's clients are:
- Cities and towns
- Counties
- Townships
- Fire Protection Districts
- Other Special Taxing Districts
The regulation of local government budgets has become more and more complex,
and the Department of Local Government Finance and other state agencies have
become stricter in the application of these rules. Consequently, many local
officials realize that professional assistance is needed to deal with the
opportunities and traps that exist in the budget process. Also, more and
more local units of government are trying to control spending and tax rates.
Many of these officials realize that forward planning and a thorough
understanding of the regulations is necessary in order to control local
government finances.
Budgeting involves more than just filling out state-prescribed forms and
following traditional conventions. Expertise in the regulations is needed to
recommend budget structures that are the most advantageous. For most local
units, hiring an internal budget staff with this level of expertise is more
expensive and less effective than hiring us. Effective budget staffers
command high salaries as well as expensive office space, computer equipment,
and fringe benefits. It is difficult to find, hire, train, manage, and
retain a good budget staff. It is much less expensive, in most cases, to
engage our firm. That way, your locality pays only for the time used and is
assured of having a competent professional available.
The general rule applies here: use internal resources for tasks that are
routine or require constant attention, all year round. But, hire outside
consultants when the job requires a high degree of training and is
non-routine or seasonal.
We offer the advantage of being able to share ideas among clients. Without
breaking confidences, we can identify innovations that worked well for one
client and recommend them promptly to other clients. Internal staff cannot
do so as effectively.
A client might hire us, even though the client has an excellent fiscal
officer, for the same reason you occasionally visit a medical specialist,
even though you have complete confidence in your family doctor. Likewise,
you might hire a specialist to prepare your annual tax returns, even though
you know how to keep your own books on a day-to-day basis. Also, you might
hire an attorney to write your will, even though you already know exactly
what you want to do with your estate.
Your fiscal officer is your best resource day-to-day and month-to-month.
However, he or she probably prepares only one budget, for one local unit,
per year. It is difficult for anyone to be an expert based on one experience
per year. By contrast, we prepare or consult on dozens of budgets each year
for dozens of different local units, and we focus on budget-related
regulations every day. Although your fiscal officer will always know more
than we do about your internal needs and about issues unique to your
locality, we are in a better position to prepare projections based on
State-imposed formulas and to identify the related opportunities and traps
that lie within.
Also, frankly, your fiscal officer is probably too busy to do what we do.
Fiscal officers must spend a great deal of time participating in meetings,
supervising pressing day-to-day work, and responding to immediate problems.
It is unrealistic to expect such an executive to block out the uninterrupted
time needed to research regulations and prepare projections.
We charge all our clients the same hourly rates. Over the course of a year,
our fees typically range from $7500 to $46,000 annually, depending on the
size and needs of the unit. Also, there may be additional charges for
special projects. The cost usually is much less than using internal staff,
and the service usually pays for itself in revenue and savings opportunities
identified in the budget process.
Typically, the Firm monitors its clients’ financial affairs and performs the
following functions in the course of a year.
- Assist in developing and maintaining a fiscal plan, based on discussions
with the client regarding plans and policies the client has adopted and
expects to adopt. The fiscal plans will include projections of revenues and
expenditures for each major fund. In developing these projections, we will
review certain calculations by the State Board of Tax Commissioners, the
Department of Revenue, and others, to help assure that revenue calculations
are being made correctly.
- Identify opportunities for tax levy appeals, or other opportunities to
increase revenue, and advise on the procedures for securing them.
- Attend appeal hearings as appropriate.
- Identify the need for and assist in the establishment of cumulative funds.
- Review the budget advertisement
- Translate the plans into a budget structure, presented on the appropriate
prescribed forms, enabling the client to adopt budgets that are consistent
with the plans.
- Assist in assuring that the budget, as adopted, will be acceptable to the
State Board of Tax Commissioners. If it appears the budget will not be
acceptable, we advise the client in advance of the amounts of budget cuts or
other changes the Tax Board will require.
- Attend the State Board of Tax Commissioners budget hearing to help assure
that any changes made by the Board are justified and made in a way most
advantageous to the client.
- Review final budget orders by the Tax Board to assure that they are
consistent with decisions made at the budget hearing.
- Monitor the accounting for local option income taxes at the state and county
levels to help assure distributions are made correctly to the client.
Our clients frequently ask us to undertake special projects, and we do so if
we feel we have the right expertise. Otherwise, we make referrals to other
professionals. Some projects we frequently undertake are as follows:
Make detailed projections of labor costs in instances where persons are
entitled to COLA’s, step increases, clothing allowances, and other
compensation adjustments beyond a base salary. These projections are
especially helpful in projecting the costs of adding new public safety
personnel. They are also helpful in collective bargaining negotiations.
Assist in reviewing cash management arrangements, and, where appropriate,
assist in writing requests for proposals (RFP’s) for banking services and
assist in evaluating the proposals.
Review internal accounting controls designed to provide reasonable assurance
that the Administration’s policies are being carried out and that assets are
properly safeguarded.
Prepare monthly management
reports for the General Fund based on information taken from the ledgers.
The reports show the original budget, budget revisions, the total budget, a
budget year-to-date, a comparison to actual transactions to-date, and a
variance analysis. We endeavor to bring to our client's attention problems
that become apparent as a result of preparing the monthly report.
