To repeat the lesson from class 3/5: budgets are about much more than numbers. Learn to cope with scary, complicated presentations by thinking of government or institutional budgets like your personal budgets. They work the same way.
*Power. Find out who is making decisions about where money goes in the budget and you know who has the power. (Do you decide on expenses and then hit up your parents or work extra hours to get the revenue? Then you have power. Do your parents give you a set amount you must work with? Then they have power.
*Priorities. You can always tell what's most important to a person or to an agency by looking at what they spend the most on. Know that it is always the priorities of the people with power that will get funded in a budget.
*Comparisons. In class we looked at one month's budget. If we had compared this to the budget for February of 2007 we could have made many more discoveries. Have sources of revenue changed or gone up or down markedly in a year? Why? Did expenses for some category go up a lot? Again, why?
*Basic questions. Is the budget balanced? If expenses outpace revenues, you have a deficit or debt. How is that being handled? If revenues outpace expenses you have a surplus. What will happen to that "extra money"? Is this a one-time-only surplus due to something extraordinary (a big birthday present from Grandma this year?) Is there any emergency or "rainy-day" money set aside?
*How good a job is the government doing? Does a budget need constant revision? That means planning has been inaccurate or someone isn't being careful about sticking to a budget.
*Language. In talking about your own finances, you do not talk about "shortfalls" or "deficits" or "revenue decreases." Use the same simple language you would use in writing about government officials "spending too much" or "spending more than they were supposed to." Talk about "more money coming in" or "extra funds found..."
Some things should always be included in budget-based stories. They are:
1. The total amount of the budget you are talking about
2. The percentage increase or decrease the new budget represents
3. Any significant shifts in the way money is split up among the categories in a budget -- and are there any new categories being funded
When working on government rather than personal budgets, there are some things you must learn.
1. What is the difference between a capital and an operational budget?
2. What is a general fund?
3. What is assessment of property for tax purposes?
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