Persistent and historically high inflation is dramatically impacting municipalities nationwide, in some cases completely altering prior projections and forecasts.
On top of that, the Fed’s best weapon to help control inflation — raising interest rates — has created a “double-whammy” effect, as the cost to borrow and finance big-ticket investments as well as day-to-day operations rises on top of the rising costs of materials, supplies and labor themselves.
Combining these challenges with soaring fuel prices, cities, townships and villages are now facing a “triple threat” against their prior assumptions and presented budgets.
Some municipal leaders are finding it necessary to completely rethink and redraft their budgets in order to reflect the new realities. And if they’re forced to do things the old way, they’re also doubling down on time, resources and labor already expended to repeat work they thought was once complete.
To learn how inflation may impact your school district or municipality, watch the video replay of our recent webinar, “How to Battle Inflation with Better Budgeting”. You will hear from David Zin, Chief Economist for the Senate Fiscal Agency, and Buzz Brown, CEO of Munetrix, as they share their insights on how the current rising inflation may impact the fiscal health of school districts and municipalities. Also learn how different budgeting tools and techniques can help reduce fiscal stress across your organization. WATCH REPLAY
New Tools for New Realities
Munetrix can introduce you, your team and your processes to advanced technology and new methodologies that can greatly facilitate this process and inject greater confidence and flexibility into your budgets and forecasts, even accounting for dynamic, ever-changing scenarios:
- Comparative Analytics, which allows you to compare and benchmark your budget allocations against your peers to make more informed decisions on how to best allocate resources
- Performance Analytics and Data Visualization: powerful analysis and visualization tools designed to help budgeters and planners see the bigger, more complete picture and optimize planning accordingly
- Free Budget Allocation Comparison Report: a customized report to your specific municipality, comparing your budget allocations against the average of all others in your region, at no cost to you
- The Munetrix Enterprise Suite, which includes several apps for budget building and scenario planning that allow you to change suppositions and prognostications with a few clicks in a matter of minutes — as opposed to weeks or months — such as the Forecast Builder, the Scenario Builder, the Budget Builder, the Capital Improvement Manager and more.
- Neighborhood Intel, our newest product, which uses time-series analysis to aggregate, streamline, desegregate and intuitively present a holistic view of every community in your state—down to the census block level!
As Costs Rise, Move Complexity Lower
Completely scrapping a budget and starting over, or even dramatically altering an already-submitted budget used to be an arduous, time-intensive exercise. Adding the uncertainties and volatility of inflation, rising interest rates, and soaring fuel prices would seem to make that process an exhausting exercise in futility. Not anymore.
With the power of Munetrix’s suite of performance analytics and data visualization software, decisions just got more confident, data easier to access and understand, and outcomes quicker to optimize — no matter what the future holds!