2: City of Pennywise

The City of Pennywise has two overhead departments and two mission departments. The first mission department does not charge for its services but the second does. The City Administrator has suggested that the finance department allocate the expenditures of the two overhead departments to both mission departments based upon already commonly collected organizational statistics. For the Administration overhead expenditure, base the allocation on the number of employees and for the IT department base the allocation on the budget for each department. Using a double step-down methodology, fully allocate these budget costs from the two overhead departments (Administration and IT) to the mission department. The general rule of thumb is that you start with the most general cost first, so allocate the Administration first.

Also, remember that when you are allocating the overhead cost to the department that you will not count the overhead base in the total.

The second mission department has previously charged for its services based upon the budgeted cost divided by the planned output plus 20% to capture the cost of overhead. The planned output for the second department is 125,000 units. Assume that the cost allocation methodology is acceptable, is this charge sufficient to recover the full cost of providing the service? (5 points)

Departments	Budget	FTE
Administration	70,000	2
IT	55,000	5
Mission Dept. 1	147,500	20
Mission Dept. 2	97,500	15
Total	370,000	42

Long 3: The Miami Art Museum

The Miami Art Museum (MAM) is working on the budgets for the 2008 fiscal year, which runs from January 1 through December 31. During the first half of FY08 MAM expects its revenues and expenses to be relatively the same as the 2007 fiscal year; however, during the second half of the 2008 fiscal year MAM plans to open a new gallery focusing on contemporary art. Currently, MAM pays its Executive Director $80,000; its Curatorial and Educational staff a total of $230,000; and its administrative and resource development staff $90,000 each year. The Museum makes fixed rent payments of $12,000 every month, and utilities and other fixed expenses equal $4000 a month. When the new gallery opens on July 1, 2008 MAM will have to hire a new Curator, at an annual salary of $50,000. In addition, the new gallery is expected to increase monthly rent payments by $2500 and monthly utilities and other fixed expenses by $500.

MAM expects to receive a number of grants from foundations in FY08. Three foundations have promised grants of $60,000 each in the first half of 2008, and two more foundations have promised grants of $125,000 each when the new gallery opens. Finally, MAM receives numerous individual donations from mail and telephone solicitations; on average these individual supporters provide MAM with $30,000 in unrestricted revenue every quarter.

MAM provides educational materials to its visitors at a cost of $1.20 per visitor. Although

MAM is a free museum, it encourages its visitors to make a donation as they leave the museum.

On average, each visitor donates $2. During the first six months of the new fiscal year MAM expects the average monthly attendance to be 10,000. When the new gallery opens, the Museum forecasts that its average monthly attendance will increase to 13,000.

Create a semi-annual operating budget for the Miami Art Museums Fiscal Year 2008. (Hint: the operating budget should show the income and costs of the museum for the first six months and last six months of FY08.)