22 SportsTurf | June 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com
"F
ailing to plan is plan-
ning to fail." A budget is
a plan, albeit a dynamic
process that aids in
defining your goals. It
can help you to map a strategy to man-
age your facility and situations that
arise along with those responsibilities.
"You can't play-the-game if you don't
know where the goals are, or how to get
there."
Good budgeting is based on good
recordkeeping that hopefully provides
the history on which to base future
decisions. A good place to start the
budgeting process is to understand the
expectations of the facility owners for
your areas of responsibility; list those
fields and specific areas under your
management and consider the entire
scope of the facility and its revenues.
We all assume that all sports facilities
want safe and playable conditions for
their fields and all adjacent areas, but
the budget parameters must be ade-
quate to produce those levels of safety
and playability.
Income, (I'll call it "revenue"), is a
starting point before expenditures can
be realistically projected. Along with
your facility owners, start identifying
the revenue sources and available funds
from each source as well as the cash
flow timeline. You will need to know the
"when" as well as the total "how much."
Most of time you will be provided
this information, but if you have a new
facility or are in a new position, per-
haps your predecessor was not a good
record keeper and then the challenge
to develop a budget from "scratch"
presents another task. I would sug-
gest in that situation your tact should
be to realistically list your needs as
if adequate revenues exist. Note: the
emphasis is on need, not a grand wish
list. When firm estimates of revenue
are realized then you can refine your
expenditures knowing that you have
identified reasonable needs based upon
preset goals.
BUDGET PLANNING
FACILITY & OPERATIONS
■ BY RICHARD MILLER
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