Analysis Of Staffing And Operating Budgets For Play Outside Non-Profit

Background Information

The essence of staffing and operating budget is an initiative of inclusion within this company’s affairs as the company seeks to diversify its corporate environmental agendas. Within these aspects, the company creates a culture of inclusion with established workplace that support such communicative initiative that boost the employees and customers’ collective motivations to build a business community through funding diversity and inclusive recruitment as well as initiatives of retention. In an extensive perspective, it is not smooth as it is to some companies because budgeting and staffing have functional definitions that are also not the same across all companies. However, information is shared on functions that have increasing importance. This paper, therefore, seek to explain how the changes in revenues and the cost influence the decisions that are made on budget. More than that, the study will emphasize on the role of the accounting department and information to managers, the role of the budget in planning and decision making in budgeting process. The paper also explains the application of budgetary control and variance analysis in the monitory function, control, and adjustment on organization cost and performances.

Play Outside is a not-for-profit organization that develops and maintains playgrounds in neighborhoods with no playgrounds or fields. Play Outside has been operating since 2007. Play Outside’s mission is to help put smiles on the faces of children and build a better future, one playground at a time. During the 10 years of its operation, Play Outside has built 20 playgrounds. Every year at least 6new projects are submitted for evaluation, but with limited resources only 2 new playgrounds can be chosen, planned, designed and built. The cost for a new playground is $9,000 and the cost of maintenance is $1,800 for each site. The majority of the work is carried out by 15 to 20 volunteers. Play Outside’s volunteers maintain the playgrounds for 10 years and afterwards a local community organization takes over maintenance (Ghanes, et al. 2014).  The paid staff oversees the administration of external grants, project applications and evaluation, maintenance schedules and volunteers. With the growing number of maintenance projects and volunteers Play-Outside will hire a new half-time Volunteer Assistant in 2018.

Play Outside’s revenue is from a lottery projects grants, individual and corporate donations. The operating expenses and some project costs are in the operating budget. The budget goal is have a surplus at the end of the year equal to 5% of total revenue received. In 2016 and 2017 Play Outside did not meet this target.  

Staffing Budget

According to the memo, the 2018 staffing and operating budgets for the Play Outside were to be prepared using the following guidelines:

The first step was to hire volunteer Assistant position at half-time in 2018. The salary between $42,000 and $47,000 per year. The position will start on January 1st. The two basic positions for the budgeting are the manager’s and administrative assistant’s position, whose position, based on year 2017’s position, received a benefit of $65,000 plus benefits and $45,000 plus benefits respectively. It is also quoted in the memo that a benefit rate of 39% was to accrue the management crews. More than that, all the current employees will receive a 3% increase, as of January 1, 2019. This would bring the total staffing budget cannot be more than $165,202 for all 2.5 position for 12 months.

Therefore, in the year 2017, the following table shows the Play Outside’s fiscal year from 2016.

Table 1: Play Outside’s fiscal year is January to December.

ACTUALS
Play Outside	2016	2017
Revenue
Lottery grant for new playgrounds and maintenance	32,000	36,000
City grant	8,000	5,000
Donations from individuals	100,500	125,000
Donations from corporations	17,500	15,000
Total Revenue	158,000	181,000
Staffing Budget Totals	129,409	136,012
Expenses
Office supplies	1,000	1,000
Telephone	200	200
Marketing presentations and outreach	2,500	5,500
Sports field maintenance project	10,800	14,400
Sports field development projects	12,000	18,000
Miscellaneous expenses	850	2,250
Lease for printers and copiers (annual fee)	500	500
Lease for computers ($225 annual fee)	450	450
Total Expenses	28,300	42,300
Actual Surplus or Deficit	291	2,689

Using the adjustments on the exhibit table above, the staffing budget becomes adjusted as shown in the table below:

2018 Staffing Budget with 2017 Actuals
January to December 2018
Employee Salaries	2018 Actuals
Manager	55,000.00
Administrative Assistant	40,000.00
Volunteer Assistant (half-time) — New
Salary Totals	95,000
Benefits
Manager	21,450
Administrative Assistant	15,600
Volunteer Assistant — New	–
Benefits Totals	37,050
Staffing Budget Grand Total	132,050

The Play Outsides 2017 actual operating and project expenses were $42,300 and are shown in the table above. In 2018, additional operating expenses are a new computer lease for the Volunteer Assistant for $225 and 3 new playground projects. Playgrounds costs $9,000 to design and build. Play Outside’s goal is to finish 2018 with a surplus of 5% of total revenue received. The adjustments to the 2017 operating expenses to include the 2017 operating expenses are as shown in the table below:

Operating Budget with 2018 Actuals

January to December 2019

Description	2018 Actuals
Revenue
Playground maintenance project	3,500
Sports field maintenance project	5,000
Playground development projects	5,250
Sports field development projects	5,000
Operating grant	28,613
Total Revenue	47,363
Expenses
Office supplies	1,500
Telephone	450
Marketing presentations and outreach	5,200
Office supplies	3,200
Playground maintenance project	4,300
Sports field maintenance project	5,500
Playground development projects	9,400
Sports field development projects	7,250
Miscellaneous expenses	2,000
Lease for printers and copiers (annual fee)	8,000
Lease for computers ($225 annual fee)	563
Total Expenses	47,363

Operating Budget with 2017 Actuals
January to December 2018
Description	2017 Actuals	2018 Budget
Revenue
Lottery grant for new playgrounds and maintenance	36,000	5,000
New grant playground projects 2018	–	8750
City grant (new grant project)	5,000	28,613
Donations from individuals	125,000
Donations from corporations	15,000
Total Revenue	181,000	47,363
Staffing Budget Totals	136,012
Operating Expenses
Office supplies	1,000	1500
Telephone	200	450
Marketing presentations and outreach	5,500	5,200
Sports field maintenance project	14,400	5,500
Sports field development projects	18,000	7250
Miscellaneous expenses	2,250	2,000
Lease for printers and copiers (annual fee)	500	8,000
Lease for computers ($225 annual fee)	450	563
Total Expenses	42,300	47,363
Grand Total		94,726
Total Surplus or Deficit (Revenue less Staffing Expenses and Operating Expenses)	2,688	0
Goal is a surplus is 5%                                                      the goal              is a balanced budget

Considering the fact that the staffing budget grand total is 132,050 and the Grand total for staffing and budgeting expense is 94,726, then goal is a deficit of 74,648.

For purposes of increasing support and sustainability of the diversity and inclusion function, staff and resources, Play Outsides should increase the staffing allocated to support business units also on the rise (Ilk, et al. 2018 and Newman, 2016). The emblematic inclusion of the salaries and benefits of the management of the event should create involvement of diversity and inclusion staff members that are usually directly attributed to the overall budget, or, in certain instances, companies use dotted-line budget shares.

References

Ghanes, K., Jouini, O., Jemai, Z., Wargon, M., Hellmann, R., Thomas, V., & Koole, G. (2014, December). A comprehensive simulation modeling of an emergency department: A case study for simulation optimization of staffing levels. In Proceedings of the 2014 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 1421-1432). IEEE Press.

Ghanes, K., Wargon, M., Jouini, O., Jemai, Z., Diakogiannis, A., Hellmann, R., … & Koole, G. (2015). Simulation-based optimization of staffing levels in an emergency department. Simulation, 91(10), 942-953.

Ilk, N., Brusco, M., & Goes, P. (2018). Workforce management in omnichannel service centers with heterogeneous channel response urgencies. Decision Support Systems, 105, 13-23.

Johnson-Carlson, P., Costanzo, C., & Kopetsky, D. (2017). Predictive staffing simulation model methodology. Nursing Economics, 35(4), 161.

Min, H., & Jong Joo, S. (2006). Benchmarking the operational efficiency of third party logistics providers using data envelopment analysis. Supply chain management: An International journal, 11(3), 259-265.

Newman, S. J. (2016). Assessment of staffing, services, and partnerships of local health departments—United States, 2015. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 65.