Scenario for Assignments 1-5

For Assignments 1-5, you are the new budgeting and finance administrator for your local government agency. Your first responsibility is to become familiar with the agency, the budget, programs, and capital projects. As the administrator, you will be responsible for analyzing, examining, proposing, and preparing the agency’s budget for the next five (5) years.

Note: Students cannot use New York City as a selected local government

Assignment 1: The Operating Budget

Due Week 4 and worth 150 points

Write a four to five (4-5) page paper, titled Part I: The Operating Budget for the (Selected Agency) in which you separate the content into sections:

1. Provide background information about the agency, mission, goals, objectives, departments, and strategic plan. (Title this section Introduction.)
2. Describe the budget of the agency by addressing the following items: (Title this section Budget Overview.)
   1. Financial Summary, including Revenue and Expenditures
   2. Department Budgets
   3. Funding
   4. Capital Projects
   5. Debt Administration
3. Perform a Cost Analysis. (Title this section Cost Analysis.) The costs should include the following:
   1. Fixed Costs
   2. Step-fixed Costs
   3. Variable Costs
4. Identify and explain one to two (1-2) challenges you will have in managing the budget. (Title this section Budget Challenges.)
5. Recommend two to three (2-3) strategies the agency should review regarding new initiatives and budget cuts over the next five (5) years. (Title this section Budget Recommendations.)
6. Include the agency’s most recent budget or financial plan.
7. Provide the agency’s Website name, URL, and any other sources used to support the assignment’s criteria.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

In 2 pages with references. StopNShopToday, Inc. has had difficulty motivating and retaining key cashiers and wants to provide an incentive to them that will generate improvement in several critical areas of store cashier performance, which include the following:

• Increasing total sales revenue
• Reducing inventory losses and theft
• Improving overall customer service and satisfaction
• Improving store cleanliness and housekeeping
• Improving attendance and reducing unscheduled absences

Several stores have poor overall sales volume and ongoing chaos because of the staff taking unscheduled absences. Others have issues with inventory and theft. All the stores want to address cleanliness and customer satisfaction problems.

Overall, officials with the company feel they can commit no more than an additional $200 per employee per year as an individual incentive and no more than $500 per year for the same store or corporate incentives.

• You will select one of the critical areas of store cashier performance improvement (listed above), and recommend three components to be included in an individual incentive program for the cashiers. Use information from the Internet research you have done to aid in your understanding of cashiers’ tasks and work values. Tie your ideas to a contemporary motivational theory.
• Discuss how you might incorporate the ideas you have generated regarding individual incentives.
• Next, discuss store- or corporation-wide incentives.
• Generate a recommendation for 2 possible avenues of same-store incentives and 2 possible avenues for corporation-wide incentives.
• Present these recommendations in the form of a recommendation to Morry and Mo Gassup, owners of StopNShopToday Inc.