In 2020 a city's budget is projected to be $27 million. This is approximately 16/5 of the 2000 budget. What was the city's budget in 2000?

Question

What is the city's budget?

$__ million

(Round to the nearest hundreth.)

Answer 1

$27M = (16/5)x, where x = Year 2000 budget. So x = (5/16)of $27M = $8,437,500.

Answer 2

I am assuming the 16/5 means the new 2020 $27,000,000 budget is "16/5" larger than the budget in 2000. If the budget is now 27,000,000. 16/5 is a improper fraction, which if changed to a mixed number, it's 3-1/5, or 3.20. This means that the new budget of 27,000,000 is 3.20 times more than the original.

Therefore, we can set up the equation like this: (original budget) x (increase) = (new budget)

(a) x (3.20) = 27,000,000

We can divide the 3.20 on both sides to isolate the original budget (a):

(a) x (3.20) = 27,000,000

(3.20) (3.20)

We now can divide 27,000,000 by 3.20 and receive the original budget (a):

(a) = 27,000,000 = 8,437,500

(3.20)

The original budget (a) in 2000 was $8,437,500.