First American Bank and Trust Company was founded in 1927 in Atlanta, Georgia. Their corporate headquarters is still located in Atlanta, Georgia. The bank currently has operations in 17 states east of the Mississippi River as follows: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Hew Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. The bank currently has a total of 1,275 branch offices in the above 17 states and the bank has a total of 14,300 employees. All the bank locations are open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Thursday, and from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Friday. In addition, 624 of the most profitable bank locations are also open from 9:00 AM until Noon on Saturday. The bank has two major categories of customers as follows: 1. Individual Accounts: This includes people who have checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and auto loans and home loans with the bank. 2. Business Accounts: This includes partnerships, corporations, and non-profit businesses. The bank does not plan to make any changes in the way that it services its individual accounts. However, the bank is considering making a short-term change in the amount of money that it loans to its business customers. The reason is as follows. The first six months of the year 2017 has been extremely profitable and the bank now has a significant amount of money at its disposal. In the past the bank has invested its earnings in making new loans to its business customers where there was a very good profit potential and where there was very little risk associated with the loan. However, at this time the bank is considering investing a significant portion of its excess funds in expanding its own operations and only loaning a small amount of their money to their business customers. The Executive Board of the bank would like to gather some preliminary information on the feasibility of all three of the following business proposals: Proposal A: Add more branch offices in the 17 states where the bank already has operations but do not expand into any other states at this time. Proposal B: Do not add any more branch offices in the 17 states where the bank is already established but instead expand into the following states east of the Mississippi River: Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and Ohio. Proposal C: Do not add any more branch offices in the 17 states where the bank is already established but instead expand into the following states west of the Mississippi River: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Executive Board of the Bank has carefully reviewed all the information that was collected on the three proposals that it was considering. The Executive Board has decided that Proposal B has the highest profit potential with the lowest total cost and with an acceptable degree of risk. Therefore the bank wishes to begin implementation of Proposal B as follows: Proposal B: Do not add any more branch offices in the 17 states where the bank is already established but instead expand into the following states east of the Mississippi River: Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and Ohio. The Executive Board now wants you to answer the following four questions and provide them with all the following information: 1. What type of budget or budgets would you recommend so that the Bank can successfully complete the implementation of Proposal B? What major cost items should be included in the budget or budgets for the bank? Do not estimate the cost for these items. Only identify the major items that should be included and clearly explain why each major item is important. 2. Exactly who should participate in the creation of the budget or budget? This will be the Job Titles of the people who will be responsible for estimating the costs and timetables for each item in the budget or budgets. Clearly explain exactly why each of these people should participate in the creation of the budget or budgets. 3. Clearly explain exactly how the progress on the overall project should be tracked and reported. Clearly explain exactly how performance against the budget(s) should be tracked and reported. 4. Identify the types of variances that should be monitored and reported. Clearly explain why you recommend keeping track of these variances and clearly exactly what these variances will reveal and the purpose for which they will they be used. (You do not need to provide any numbers and you do not need to do any calcuations.)