FAQ 447: Budget--Decrease high group budget will not solve

Problem: The budget routine won't solve. It keeps saying "cannot pass under any of the selected methods". I unchecked the "Calculate Minimum Allocation" option to turn off the gateway test to check to see if it was a gateway failure, and it still won't solve. It should be able to solve even with a young doctor at 0%. I ran it before with only 2 groups - all doctors in Group 1, then staff in Group 2. It solved with a staff expense of 7.4%. They only wanted to spend 5%, so I separated out the young doctor in to his own group. Group 1 - young doctor (decrease high) Group 2 - staff Group 3 - older doctors at $42000

Solution: This is an unusual case. Every time I have seen a "Decrease High" budget not solve, it has been a gateway problem. Generally there is someone that must get the gateway, but is not getting in based on the user contribution coding for groups 2-A. The budget's decrease high option only "designs" for Group 1, and does not change the percentage input for Groups 2-A, even if those input percents do not pass the gateway. This is different than the "Increase Low" option, which is designing for both Group 1 and 2, and will bump the Group 2 percentage to pass the gateway. In this particular case, the design is turning on the ABPT test. Even with the young doctor at $1 - it still fails because the HCE group 70% is at 3.31% and the nonHCEs are only at 2.94%. The best test of the budget in this situation is to code the formula you think will work in the Source 2 specs, then run Valuation calculations and print the a4 test. You can then see the groups and what is passing/failing. I ran an increase low option and it put Group 2 at 8.46%, which allowed the ABPT to pass even with the young doctor at 415.