With this problem, i don't understand how to work it out.

smallville's town council has records of the town's budget over a 10-year period. year: 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 budget($1000s): 265.1 277.5 288.9 303.0 311.3 year: 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 budget($1000s): 320.4 334.5 351.2 368.2 381.7 which model relates the budget as a function of the number of years since 1990? what does the model predict the town's budget will be in the year 2001, and what year does the model predict the town's budget will exceed $400,000?

The way to work it is to make a table in Excel (or equivalent program) with the data of budget for every year.

This is how it should look:

year      budget
     0     265.1
     1     277.5
     2     288.9
     3     303.0
     4     311.3
     5    320.4
     6    334.5
     7    351.2
     8    368.2
     9    381.7

Select both columns and inser a scatter plot graph (menu, insert, graph, scatterplot).

Now change the design of the graph to include the model. In this case I got y = 12.724 x + 262.92

x represents the number of year after 1990 and y represents the budget.

Now you can use the model to calcualte the budget when you know the year and to calculate the year when you know the budget.

For year 2001, x = 11 and y = 12.724 (11) + 262. 92 = 402.88 (which is 402,880)

 This is the same year for which the budget exceeds 400,000.