George Mason University Budget Activity Discussion

Part A:

Review the scenario below and respond to the accompanying questions. Respond according to your understanding of this lesson’s content and content from prior lessons in the course and other SRTM courses, providing detailed explanations of your answers.

Download the following operating budget for Lakeview County Parks and Recreation

In light of recent tax revenue shortfalls in Lakeview County, the County Commissioners have decided that the Parks and Recreation Department will need to pursue budget cuts. The parks and recreation director has decided that the park operations budget must be cut by 15%. That means that you must cut approximately $816,000 out of the “FY 2020” operations budget. You CANNOT cut salaries, benefits, or personnel.

Explain how you would reduce the budget by that amount. Where would you pull from? Why? Provide a justification for your cuts, particularly in the context of current events/issues facing the nation. Your cuts should be realistic, specific, and justifiable (e.g., saying you’ll reduce maintenance-related expenditures is too broad, you’d need to justify how and why. For instance, what types of expenditures would you cut? Maintenance to what facilities or amenities? Why?).

For this assignment, you must post before you can see the posts of your peers.

Part B:

Respond to 2 peers in the discussion board (try to respond to posts that don’t already have a lot of responses) and answer the following questions:

• What proposed budgets cuts do you agree with/think were well justified?
• What proposed budgets cuts do you disagree with? Why? What would be your rationale for NOT cutting from these areas?