OFFICE ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT 589 



should be made up along these lines and not in accordance with the code 

 used in the general fund budget. 



If the records pertaining to the operation of these businesses can be 

 held together in an operating fund and only the net result used in the 

 make-up of the park department budget, fewer complications will result 

 and more detailed analyses of these businesses will be greatly facilitated. 

 These activities can be operated very efficiently on a budget basis. The 

 total receipts and the total expenditures of the business may vary greatly 

 in total from the budget figures, but the resulting profit may not show so 

 great a variation, and when this variation is transferred to the total receipts 

 in the general park budget, its effect upon the totals of that budget is 

 indeed very small. On the other hand, had the total receipts and expendi- 

 tures of the business enterprise been carried in total in the general park 

 budget, the variation in carrying out the budget would have been great 

 indeed and the actual accomplishments would not be a measure of the 

 efficiency of the manager; nor, in fact, would they answer the purpose of 

 the general budget itself. 



The general budget is compiled with the idea in mind that where taxes 

 are augmented by the receipts from revenue-producing activities, it is the 

 net receipts from those activities which result in a reduction in the amount 

 necessary to be raised by taxation and not in the gross receipts of such 

 revenue-producing activities. For if the gross receipts are used, then the 

 gross expenditures must be allowed, and it is not the intention of the budget- 

 making authorities to authorize the expenditure of more money than is 

 actually taken in. 



Summary of budget discussion. The purpose of the budget, it is observed, 

 is to require the spending authorities to disclose to the public and to the 

 official auditing and tax-reviewing bodies a distinct plan of operation for 

 the ensuing year, and also to provide, by the making up of the budget, a 

 basis of comparison at the close of the fiscal year for determining whether 

 or not those plans were actually carried out, whether the funds were judi- 

 ciously spent as authorized by the adoption of the budget and, in short, to 

 measure in a way the efficiency of the department manager. The budget, 

 although answering these purposes in a generally satisfactory manner, yet 

 frequently is not sufficient for all managing purposes and consequently 

 needs the aid of supplemental records which we will here call "financial 

 records for management purposes." 



j. Financial records for management purposes. In estimating the budget 

 requirements for a park system, the expenditure figures are usually the 

 result of consolidated estimates of expenditures on many different parks 

 and park activities. In other words, .the expenditures required for Audubon 



