Our community is forming a new fire board...

We had a meeting last night laying out the likely large capital
outlays for the next 15 years. Some of these items are monster ticket,
in the 500+K range.

I could lay a out something in a spread sheet, then re do it for each
change. But there must be a more elegant solution to the question of
how much funding per year is needed to meet projected expenses.

Suggestions?

Karl Townsend wrote:
Our community is forming a new fire board...

We had a meeting last night laying out the likely large capital
outlays for the next 15 years. Some of these items are monster ticket,
in the 500+K range.

I could lay a out something in a spread sheet, then re do it for each
change. But there must be a more elegant solution to the question of
how much funding per year is needed to meet projected expenses.

Suggestions?


Yeah, contract out for fire coverage. MUCH less aggravation. As well as
being cheaper.

Are you starting from scratch? With new station and equipment and all
the rest? If so you are looking at some HUGE money outlays.

There are a number of software packages specific to fire departments out
there. Most include budgeting in them. Look at your home state as well.
Most have specific rules and paperwork for the fire service and many
also have the budgeting layouts available. You just have to add/remove
the correct sections based on type of department and equipment used.

--
Steve W.

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:53:25 -0400, "Steve W."
wrote:

Karl Townsend wrote:
Our community is forming a new fire board...

We had a meeting last night laying out the likely large capital
outlays for the next 15 years. Some of these items are monster ticket,
in the 500+K range.

I could lay a out something in a spread sheet, then re do it for each
change. But there must be a more elegant solution to the question of
how much funding per year is needed to meet projected expenses.

Suggestions?


Yeah, contract out for fire coverage. MUCH less aggravation. As well as
being cheaper.

Are you starting from scratch? With new station and equipment and all
the rest? If so you are looking at some HUGE money outlays.

There are a number of software packages specific to fire departments out
there. Most include budgeting in them. Look at your home state as well.
Most have specific rules and paperwork for the fire service and many
also have the budgeting layouts available. You just have to add/remove
the correct sections based on type of department and equipment used.

No everything existing, just need better long term planning. Costs are
rising and we just can't raise property taxes any more. Plus our state
gov'mint keeps robbing local revenue streams to pay their bills.

Karl

Karl Townsend wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:53:25 -0400, "Steve W."
wrote:

Karl Townsend wrote:
Our community is forming a new fire board...

We had a meeting last night laying out the likely large capital
outlays for the next 15 years. Some of these items are monster ticket,
in the 500+K range.

I could lay a out something in a spread sheet, then re do it for each
change. But there must be a more elegant solution to the question of
how much funding per year is needed to meet projected expenses.

Suggestions?

Yeah, contract out for fire coverage. MUCH less aggravation. As well as
being cheaper.

Are you starting from scratch? With new station and equipment and all
the rest? If so you are looking at some HUGE money outlays.

There are a number of software packages specific to fire departments out
there. Most include budgeting in them. Look at your home state as well.
Most have specific rules and paperwork for the fire service and many
also have the budgeting layouts available. You just have to add/remove
the correct sections based on type of department and equipment used.

No everything existing, just need better long term planning. Costs are
rising and we just can't raise property taxes any more. Plus our state
gov'mint keeps robbing local revenue streams to pay their bills.

Karl


That makes it somewhat easier. We have the same problem with our depts
budget.

The biggest problem is usually the OOPS funding, hard to plan for a
failed pump or transfer case problem.

You might look at quicken if you don't need a huge package. I used it
for a while till the depts. "secretary" took over and decided on PAPER
budgeting !!!!

--
Steve W.

"Steve W." wrote in message
...
Karl Townsend wrote:


The biggest problem is usually the OOPS funding, hard to plan for a
failed pump or transfer case problem.

You might look at quicken if you don't need a huge package. I used
it for a while till the depts. "secretary" took over and decided on
PAPER budgeting !!!!
Steve W.

Several of our town departments have set up Capital Reserve Funds for
major repairs and replacements beyond their budget. Usually we
grudgingly fund them at town meetings unless the dept heads appear
greedy or careless.

They definitely have to be prepared to stand up and defend what they
want; the library trustees are particularly deficient at it. I can ask
them VERY difficult questions.
jsw

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:31:59 -0500
Karl Townsend wrote:

Our community is forming a new fire board...

We had a meeting last night laying out the likely large capital
outlays for the next 15 years. Some of these items are monster ticket,
in the 500+K range.

I could lay a out something in a spread sheet, then re do it for each
change. But there must be a more elegant solution to the question of
how much funding per year is needed to meet projected expenses.

Suggestions?

Don't know what spreadsheet software you have... but most of them have
built in formulas for figuring out financial problems like that.
Usually you just have to plug in a few variables like length of loan,
interest rate, amount invested...

Run your spreadsheet program and take a look at the help files for
formulas. Especially financial, capital budgeting and maybe
depreciation.

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
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On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:31:59 -0500
Karl Townsend wrote:

Our community is forming a new fire board...

We had a meeting last night laying out the likely large capital
outlays for the next 15 years. Some of these items are monster ticket,
in the 500+K range.

I could lay a out something in a spread sheet, then re do it for each
change. But there must be a more elegant solution to the question of
how much funding per year is needed to meet projected expenses.

Suggestions?

I just had one other thought...

Would something like GnuCash help?

http://www.gnucash.org/

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email