1. What is your assessment of the method the public works director used to construct the budget?
2. Prepare flexible budget for the snow plowing department. What does it tell you?
3. Compute the appropriate variances for drivers. What do they tell you?
4. What plan should Mr. Donaldson present to the public works director for making cost reductions?
Town afBellr'ngton Sam Donaldson, supervisor of the snow removal department for the Town of Bellingtou. stared at the memo he had just received from the director of public works. The opening paragraphs were anything but reassuring: As you know. 1 have instituted a new responsibility accounting system. From now on you will receive quarterly reports that compare the costs of operating your department with your budget. The reports will highlight the differences (variances) so that you can easily zero in on any departures from your budget. Basi cally. responsibility accounting means you are to keep the costs in your department within your budget. The variances will help you identify those costs that are out of line. and the sizes of the variances will indicate the most important cost items to address. Your rst report accompanies this memo. [Exhibit 1] Sam. your report indicates that several of your costs are signicantly above your quarterly budget. You need to pay particular attention to the salaries of your snowplow drivers. Please get back to me by the end of next week with a plan for making the needed reductions. Mr. Donaldson knew he needed a plan, yet midwinter was the busiest time of the year for snow removal. and a big storm had been predicted for the weekend. BACKGROUND The Town of Bellington was located in the north-central United States. Founded in the mid- 1800s by immigrants from northern Europe. it had grown slowly over the intervening years. The new director of public works, a business school graduate with prior experience in manufacturing and service companies in the private sector, had been hired last year. He had almost immediately in- stituted a new responsibility accounting system. which included a revised budgeting process and quarterly reports for his various department heads,such as snow removal, street cleaning, road rc- pair. and trafc light maintenance. Previously, cost data had been presented to department heads only infrequently. but the new director was certain that more frequent information would provide greater incentives for his department heads to keep their costs under control. The new director also had prepared a budget for each department for the current scal year. and had computed quarterly budgets as one-fom'th of each department's annual budget. To prepare the budgets, he had analyzed the prior three years' costs. and, in so doing, had learned that almost all of them had increased each year. with more rapid increases in the last two years. His first thought had been to establish the budgeted line items at an average of the prior three years' costs, hoping that such an approach would encourage his department heads to reduce their operating costs to this level. However, in view of the rapid cost increases during the past two years, he chose instead to base the current year's budget on the prior year's costs less 3 percent. For the snow removal de- partment. he also estimated the cubic miles of snow to be removed, which he set at an average of the cast three vears. Mr. Donaldson had received the report shown in Exhibit 1 in mid-January. He reflected on its content: Some of my costs don't change, even if there's a change in the cubic miles of snow we plow. On the other hand, drivers, supplies, fuel, and maintenance vary almost directly with changes in cubic miles. Shouldn't my budget reflect this distinction? Also, my budget didn't include my October salary increase- was I sup- posed to refuse it to help keep my budget in balance?Finally, I think it's important to note that I had to pay overtime to the drivers because of some very heavy storms we had back in mid-December. Because of this, my average hourly rate for the whole three months was $21 instead of the $18 that was in my budget. In fact, and maybe this is a little picky, the aver- age number of minutes it took my drivers to plow a cubic mile of snow during the quarter actually dropped from 48, which was my budget target, to 47. Somehow, even though it's pretty small, I think this im- provement should be taken into consideration. Assignment 1. What is your assessment of the method the public works director used to construct the budget? 2. Prepare a flexible budget for the snow plowing department. What does it tell you? 3. Compute the appropriate variances for drivers. What do they tell you? 4. What plan should Mr. Donaldson present to the public works director for making cost reductions? TOWN OF BELLINGTON Exhibit 1. Performance Report -- Snow Removal Department October-December (Over) Under % (Over) Under Budget Actual Budget Budget Snow days (a) 10 12 (2) (20) Cubic miles of snow (b) 1,250 1,500 (250) (20) Costs Drivers (c) $18,000 $24,675 $(6,675) (37) Supplies (d) 1,125 1,875 (750) (67) Fuel 1,750 2,500 (750 (43) Maintenance (e) 1,375 2.200 (825 (60) Supervisor's salary 15,000 18,000 (3,000) (20) Allocated administrative costs (f) 4.000 5.000 (1,000) (25) Equipment depreciation (g) 1,250 1,250 0 Total $42,500 $55,500 $(13,000) (31) Notes: a. Days when there was at least one inch of snow. Less than that, and no snow plowing took place. b. Computed, for each storm, by multiplying the depth of snowfall (according to the official measure by the town clerk) by the miles of roadways to be plowed.c. Drivers were paid hourly, not by the mile. However, the number of hours needed to clear the roadways depended to a great extent on cubic miles of snow. For example, an inch of snow from a relatively light storm would take less time to plow, than six inches of snow from a moderate storm. The amount of time needed to clear the road- ways also depended on the length of the storm. For example, if a storm deposited six inches of snow in a few hours, the drivers would wait until the storm had ended, and then clear the roads with one pass of the plows. However, if a storm deposited six inches of snow over, say, a 24 hour period, two or more passes of the plows would be needed to keep the roads clear. When a driver worked more than 8 hours in a 24-hour period, he/she was paid a 50 percent overtime premium for the additional hours. d. Mainly sand and salt. Office and other administrative supplies were part of the administrative cost allocation. e. Was almost directly related to miles driven. Thus, a 24 hour storm, requiring several passes, would lead to more maintenance costs than a storm of only a few hours, even if the cubic miles of plowed snow were the same. f. Based on the town's full cost accounting system. The system used different allocation bases for different town services, such as custodial work, administrative salaries and supplies, and repairs and maintenance. g. Exclusively for the snow plows. The department had no other assets to be depreciated
