Budgeting may be defined as the process of creating a specific plan that will dictate how one is going to spend their funds. Also, the spending plan is what we refer to as a budget. Therefore, budgeting simply involves balancing your expenses with your income. One advantage of having a spending plan, is that it allows people to determine in advance if they have sufficient finances to undertake the desired activity. Budgeting is necessary and advantageous in that it allow:
Planning Orientation
The budget creation process moves the administration of any organization away from its short-term daily management, and forces them to think about the long—term position of the business.
Profitability Review
It becomes very easy to lose track of where a company is making most of its profits during the daily scramble in business operations. Hence, a budget which is properly structured is able to pin point the aspects of the business which generate revenue, and which ones use the profit, this forces the management to reconsider as to whether it should drop expand some parts of the business or drop others.
Cash Allocation
In any business, resources are known to be scarce in nature. Thus, there only exists a limited quantity of cash available for investment in working capital and fixed assets, the process of budgeting helps the management to decide which combination of assets are worth capitalizing in.
The main objective of any organization is to make profits and the only way profits may be realized is through the reduction of all unnecessary costs. For each one of the allocated percentages for programming, proper evaluation must be done in order to determine the way forward. Since the state has a deficit of 157 million dollars, Carter must make sacrifice in order to sustain the prison. Each of the percentage of the program must be reduced by a small margin, this will allow for the reduction of redundant costs which accrue due to the undertaking of these programs.
For education programs, the reduction of the percentage allocation will mean that the number of part-time instructors will have to be reduced by some level, and once the instructors are reduced it implies that the wages and salary paid out shall be less thus saving on costs. Inmates may also be encouraged to share the course materials, therefore the prison would not need to purchase study materials for each inmate, and hence costs shall be extremely reduced. Also the administration of the prison may undertake a research survey in order to establish which programs are essential, and those which are not. In that process, the management shall capitalize on essential programs, and eliminate projects that seem less important, thereby saving millions of money that are allocated to these projects.
Savings on the other hand may be made if the prison reduced the total number of inmates in this institutions. As it is known, a lot of funds is used to cater for the needs of the inmates and to be more precise their medical needs required a lot of money. The most interesting fact is that the prisons are responsible for all medical expenses for their inmates. Hence the larger the number of inmates, the more the costs of maintaining them. If Carter could propose the reduction in the number of inmates, the prison shall be able to save more funds, as the health care costs will be significantly reduced.
Recreational programs should be eliminated in the prisons. The main reason why this is important is because; for the inmates sentenced to jail imprisonment, they must have committed serious felonies. By giving them access to gym equipment’s, they are not only making the convicts stronger but also it is a waste of government finances. The recreational programs like gym, should be replaced with increased manual labor. The funds wasted on this program may be channeled into other essential and effective programs like counselling programs or vocational programs. Programs that develop the inmate’s brains and skills, rather than gym which only make the convicts bigger and stronger.
From my own personal view point, there exists some programs mentioned in the report which do not require the reduction of their percentage. First, is the counselling program, as we all know counselling is a very essential process in life. It make people change their behaviors or ways, and to its success we have been able to witness the lives of various people transform from bad to good. People who are in jail require counselling more than any other programs offered by these correctional institutions. During counselling sessions, the convicts get time to interact both in public and in private with the counselors and they are able to open up on various issue that they undergo while in prisons. Correspondingly, they are able to get advice from counselling experts on how to be better people in life, and also how to cope with life within the penitentiary walls. Lastly, as a result of counselling programs in jails, there have been instances where convicts reform and some of them are pardoned due to their acceptable behavior.
Finally, vocational programs are key in prisons and they should also be encouraged in prisons. These vocational programs equip the inmates with various skills like; technician and craft. The inmates are therefore able to work and develop their skills even if they are locked up. There are instances where prisoners develop creative objects, which may be used in the outside world all thanks to the vocational programs.
Reference
Peat, Barbara. (2011). Case studies in Corrections. Durham. Carolina Academic Press.
ISBN 978 – 1 – 59460 – 823 – 0
