To: Burnis Morris
From: Kristen Hainkel
Re: Major assignment 5
Date: 3.17.2011

Subject: Huntington’s proposed 2012 fiscal year budget

Scope: I will analyze three years worth of Huntington’s fiscal year budgets. Along with the overall budget, I will analyze the changes in the Police and Fire Department.

Need: This budget affects everyone working in the city of Huntington. Their department could face layoffs, which causes someone to lose their job. Or a department could not have as much funding, which causes the agency to possibly not be able to serve the public as well as they did before.

Methods: I will be analyzing the 2011, 2010, and 2009 fiscal year budgets of Huntington. I will be compare and contrasting how the budget changed. How much percentage increase or decrease did it change over these years? Did any department receive any significant cuts?

Sources: The main source will be the 2012 fiscal year budget. Also I will interview city council members to about the features of this budget.

Presentation: A main story about the budget. This will focus on what the budget contains and how much a change it is from the previous year. The story will be accompanied by a sidebar depicting how the budget affects one particular department.

Follow Up: The mayor will adopt a budget before the end of this month. It would be timely to follow up with a story explaining the differences between the proposed budget and what the mayor officially adopted.