Organizational Budget Trimming In ’09
So it is the end of ’08.
We are choosing to trim in ’09 as an organization in lieu of the current economic slump.
This isn’t rocket science.
It needs to happen.
One of the ways that my dept and others are choosing to save is by not catering for Christmas parties and having pot lucks in each others homes.
Another way next year is by choosing to restructure the way we do our bulletins.
Saving us more money.
In your line of work…
What are some ways that your organization is choosing to trim along the edges next year?
Los
And yea. Layoffs count if that is how your organization is “trimming”.
Spill it.
RAIN IT DOWN
We've already been in cut-mode all year. We've had to lay-off a few people (every department). We recently went through a re-finance and have just made sure that every area of our budget is within practical standards.
It's been tough, but God is good through it all and we are now positioned for greater growth. Sometimes you gotta prune the branches in order to grow deeper and stronger.
We've cut the pastor's salary. It sucks since I'm the pastor.
So far that's it.
Our year end usually ends up about 10% under spending in expenses but this year we made it official – cut 10% from our operating budget in October. Salary freezes, re-evaluate in January and May.
The beautiful thing is that our church is giving more than it ever has – regional ministry, global outreach, child sponsorship, etc etc.
To save everyone money, I just quit my job. Compassionate, eh?
we use a three tiered budget. We have the EMERGENCY budget, Program budget, and dream budget….so we aren't really trimming a whole lot…but we ARE moving to the bottom rung on the ladder.
EMERGENCY!!!
at starbucks, they're cutting back on labor hours, and managers are having to do administrative work in significantly less time than they were given before. we also have less time to do things like maintain the store–all the stuff you don't see that keeps the place looking good–so that's how we're getting impacted.
about the bulletins…why not try NOT having them altogether, just for a month, and see what happens. they may not be missed at all, and if they're not recycled, all that paper won't end up in a landfill. i'm a bbcc'er, and that's my vote–end the bulletin!
Yep, I actually went to work yesterday and had a note in my box. It read: “Due to financial shortcomings, we will be eliminating your position as of Feb. 09.”
Yes, a church…Yes, a note. FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC.
I work at a retirement home. The only way we've really cut our budget is by not hiring anyone new. The only reason someone gets hired is if someone quits. Just thankful we haven't had to layoff anyone yet. The Lord is providing.
I work in the furniture industry and my company has decided to eliminate an entire division. And guess who got the short stick?
Manufacturing, warehousing, customer service, everything and everyone, all of it. 185 people including myself, outta a job in 6 months…or less.
Come visit Crossroads Newnan Church on Christmas EVE. Service times are…11:00, 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00. and service is 1 and a half hour long. here is a Link. http://www.crossroadsnewnan.org
This makes me laugh. Not because of you, but because of where I am. It's more of a nervous laughter. You know, the kind of laughter masking worry – that I might be the part of the budget that gets trimmed!
My positioni was ousted.
Which means…I was ousted.
Looking for work(that pays) is now my new position.
In the mean time I am still working for the church(http://dialoguechurch.com) and getting Interpression Ministries(http://interpression.wordpress.com) up and going.
God is still good…he's just also confusing.
eating water.
We have been asked to cut every budget by at least 10% and to curb as much of our spending as possible. No one laid off yet, but I think that is the next step…
We're in a different position. We're a new church plant in Syracuse, NY. We've added supporters every month and had two sizable one time gifts recently.
We are alone in this endeavor currently. We're forming a team now and haven't had any gatherings; so we don't have the “have to's” that an established church (and I really mean “established” by any church who is doing worship services or has office space, etc) has.
Just an encouragement to keep pressing to those who are facing hard times. God does provide exactly what we need.
Budget cuts & layoffs. The layoffs were done a couple months ago. Most were part-timers. We are also restructuring how we use our restaurant, perhaps having an outside company run it.
DAAANG dude. that is poor poor form. sorry about that. that must put you in a tough place.
trimming out a few part time position that could be done by volunteers.
5% reduction across the board. more in some areas.
I have a store & our plan for the new year is to do more shows (ie a ton of extra work) but it is worth it if we keep all of our employees & get to work in such a wonderful place! Still praying through the details!
lol!
No trimming. We're adding. I work for Golden Living. We own 300-some nursing homes.
I know exactly where crossroads is…cool! I attend LWRV by A-Z, know where that is?
I agree with you that the method wasn't very tasteful, but my job was extra money. We DID depend on it, but I don't want it to sound worse than it is. Sounds cliche, but He will provide!!! No worries!!
It's good to know that I'm not the only one that got a salary cut. Wife now is back to work full time and I'm home with the kids during the week. It's not what either of us wants, but it's where we are.
fire the whole staff. then pick them back up in 2010
our church had staff buyouts about 6 months ago. 1 month for every year you were employed, up to 10 months. they are just about to start round 2 of the buyouts. the admin staff is SLIM.
For my job as a 2nd grade teacher….they are cutting our supplies in half! The only problem with that is that we still need the supplies, so guess who ends up buying them with our own money??
I got laid off from my church staff position last January. I was more than welcome to continue it on a volunteer basis, but the paid position was downsized due to “budget constraints”.
Yes, I still go there. And yes, I still volunteer. For a while I wanted to tell them where they could stick their “volunteer basis” because I had to go find a job!
My husband's company has a hiring freeze and they may have started laying off their contractors. Our church has started limited offering envelops (which is just a good idea anyway). Locally, many companies are skipping the traditional Christmas party and offering time off so their employees can volunteer.
As a stay at home Mom, I'm going to volunteering more and offering to babysit for working Moms.
at my husbands work 140 when down to 60 people this year. no more over time, with the same work load. they said no more heaters in the offices so i when out and got my husband thermals to wear under his suit. more layoff to come we pray every day for those that have been and those that will recieve pink slips. That they will find work and not lose hope.
What have we not done? We've had:
Layoffs (twice)
We start 'cube-sharing' on Monday – we've combined two locations into one ( much easier after layoffs)
We've consolidated office supplies
Cut down on copies and shipping
Hiring freeze
Wage-increase freeze
Replaced the catered Christmas lunch with pot luck
I could go on …
My “corporation” is my home. I've got 3 little ones & hubs was in the RV industry. The NY Times calls our town “The white hot center of the American Economy meltdown”…yeah, scary.
Hubs was commission only & his last paycheck was 80.04 for the month.
Luckily we had savings. He left his job & started a new one on the West Coast. We're still on the East waiting for our house to sell.
Homemade everything as far as meals go, which cut the grocery budget $100 a month (no hot lunches, no packaged stuff). Turn down the heat. Sold a car. Sold furniture. This is a time of survival for most of us. It really makes me see where I have excess in my life.
I am so with you on the homemade everything! Found lots of good recipes and tips on this Yahoo group -> Frugal_moms_menus. Including a **$5 a week food storage plan**
Set aside $5 a week to buy the specific items each week. You will have a kitty set aside that you put the $5 in and you can't touch it for any reason but to buy the food storage item for that week. Put in the remaining change back into the kitty. Some things in the beginning are going to be cheap and then later will be more expensive. In order to pay for the expensive stuff later you need to keep the leftover money in the kitty. Weeks 38 and 44 you will have “off” to replenish the kitty.
Week 1: 2 cans tuna fish, 2 boxes salt
Week 2: 5 boxes of Macaroni and Cheese
4 cans tomato soup
Week 3: 3 cans mushroom soup,
1 2.5 lb peanut butter
Week 4: one bottle 365 count multi-vitamins
Week 5: 4 cans tomato soup, 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 6: 1 bottle aspirin (500 tablets)
Week 7: 1 100 lb container wheat
Week 8: 1 5 lb powdered milk
Week 9: 1 5 lb honey
Week 10: 4 cans tuna, 4 boxes macaroni and cheese
Week 11: 1 10 lb sugar, 1 box salt
Week 12: 4 cans mushroom soup
Week 13: 1 bottle 365 count multi-vitamins
Week 14: 1 100 lb wheat
Week 15: 1 box macaroni and cheese
Week 16: 1 5 lb honey
Week 17: 2 cans tuna, 4 can tomato soup
Week 18: 1 10 lbs sugar
Week 19: 1 100 lbs of wheat
Week 20: 2 10lbs of sugar
Week 21: 1 10lb powdered milk
Week 22: 1 can mushroom soup, 1 10 lb sugar
Week 23: 1 can tuna, 4 cans tomato soup, 1 10 lbs sugar
Week 24: 1 10 lbs sugar
Week 25: 2 cans tuna, 2 cans mushroom soup
Week 26: 1 100 lb wheat
Week 27: 3 10 lbs sugar
Week 28: 1 10 lb sugar
Week 29: 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 30: 2 10 lb sugar
Week 31: 1 can tuna, 3 cans mushroom soup
Week 32: 1 can tuna, 4 cans tomato soup
Week 33: 1 100 lb wheat
Week 34: 2 cans tuna, 1 box salt
Week 35: 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 36: 2 10 lb sugar
Week 37: 4 cans tomato soup, 2 boxes salt
Week 38: Stash $5 in the kitty
Week 39: 1 100 lb wheat
Week 40: 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 41: 3 10 lb sugar
Week 42: 2 cans tomato soup, 1 10 lb sugar
Week 43: 2 cans tomato soup, 2 cans mushroom soup
Week 44: Stash $5 in the kitty
Week 45: 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 46: 4 cans tomato soup, 4 cans mushroom soup
Week 47: 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 48: 4 cans mushroom soup, 1 10 lb powdered milk
Week 49: 7 cans of tomato soup
Week 50: 7 cans of mushroom soup
Week 51: 2 10 lbs sugar, 1 box salt
By the end of the 52 weeks, you should have:
700lbs of wheat,
240 lbs sugar,
40 lbs of powdered milk,
13 lbs of salt,
10 lbs of honey,
5 lbs of peanut butter,
45 cans of tomato soup,
32 cans mushroom soup,
15 cans tuna fish,
10 macaroni and cheese dinners,
500 aspirin, and
730 multiple vitamins
They suggest adding 6lbs of dried yeast and 6 lbs of shortening and this should be enough to sustain 2 people for a year. For every 2 people you have in your family add $5 more and double or triple the amount of whatever you are buying that week.
Letting 118 people go
Professional Organization.
We've done the usual: laid off poor performers, let go of high performers (let them walk instead of countering), rid the entire office of all plastic cups (errr…maybe that was to go “green”).
For 2009, one of my personal goals is to improve our team's leverage model (In short, that is making sure that the best resource is doing the job without overpaying to get the job done right. In shorter, if someone lower than you can do the job effectively…they better be doing it instead of you! In shortest, empower and delegate!) Other than the plastic cups, we haven't done and don't intend to do anything too drastic. Our business is still solid.
Personal Organization (that's home).
Good times or bad, my wife and I periodically hold contests to see who can spend the least amount of money for an entire week/month. We don't count necessities (e.g. food, gas). At the end of the month, we evaluate what we really missed, which for me is always my Carmel Macchiatos from Starbucks. But I've found that Folgers ain't all that bad. Not too good but not that bad!
I am buying my presents on ebay (hopefully some new) since I may be let go soon. My manager is trying to get me fired since I came back from taking unpaid Family leave. In this job market it would be devastating for me and my family especially with a newly adopted baby. I only pray that she gets 1000% of all the goodness she eludes.
Good call.
Personally, I always thought the way NP handled bulletins was a bit much.
Church I was working for part time decided a college student could replace me for less at the end of last summer (lighting director / stage designer). I hadn't told them, but luckily I was going to quit about a month later anyway. Been called back at least 5 times on contract work to fix things since then. Ironically, my day rate is almost double what they were paying me weekly. So they haven't really saved much money in the long run.
A music TV network I do lighting for was supposed to take a month break from shooting in like August. Other than a week of shooting Christmas specials, production has been pushed back til at least late January.
Back in September when the market took a dive, my main job (video home tours) almost dried up. We were shooting a few days a week and I think we've shot less than 5 days since then.
On a personal note, my wife and I had planned a roadtrip out west and coming back through Canada for our honeymoon (married on Oct 11), but we decided to stick closer to home and mostly just visited family and friends. It's also given me good motivation to get my photography business up and running again, which I've been wanting to do for a while now anyway.
Sorry for the long post, but I just came from my banking website and really needed to get that off my chest.
We used to get $500 gift cards to Costco…not anymore!!!!
All budgets are cut 15% across the board. And we are asking our vendors to reduce prices. Thankfully no one has been let go yet…
With all the church bulletin cutbacks we have laid off 3/4 of our workforce and moving our Duluth offices to Mexico in search of cheaper labor.
Well, my wife just voluntarily went down to four days a week instead of full time. Many people at her place of employment chose that as an alternative to layoffs.
My job has been carrying on fairly steadily. What we specialize in, actually, may see a slight uptick with a downturn.
The company I work for is an aircraft charter and fractional ownership company (think timeshare for jets). As the economy slows, and many companies are closing their flight departments and selling their aircraft, owning only a share in an aircraft, rather than the whole thing, or simply chartering it as needed, is a less-expensive option for those businesses with a need for air travel without the hassle of the airlines.
I'm sure that the slowdown will impact us later, as the ripples spread through the economy, but for right now, we're doing okay.
wingnut
The owners of the Christian bookstore I managed decided to close. That is drastic trimming. I found out when I was on vacation.
just read all the comments. now i'm depressed.
so far, the *threat* of salary freezes. nothing confirmed. i'm so glad to have a job.
we combined all our three weekly print outs and condensed it to one hand out. we are printing a 3rd of what we were weekly. This cut down printing fees, ink, and paper. So, we are slowly making some steps to cutting out unnecessary expenses and cutting out some clutter…that was driving me crazy.
my company announced that all employees who are on the bonus/incentive program or who get sales commission are not going to receive a merit increase (raise) in 09.
employees who are NOT on these plans, like me (thank goodness) are still slated for a merit increase in january. i'm not counting on it being big…
our other divisions, which have close ties to the auto industry, are scrambling and will probably start cutting positions in the new year.
fun for all!
Our student ministry is trying to kill two birds w/ one stone. Our church currently uses an outside company for all of our custodial needs (we've already been throwing around ideas for how to trim in that area). AND, we have a group of Jr./ Sr.'s who are fund raising for a hurricane relief trip to Jamaica this summer. Our proposal…
The church 'down-sizes' the professional cleaners and hires the Jamaica students for half price!! (genius? I think so!!)
Fridays off. It's like… it sucks, but it's great!
It's saddening to see all these stories of scrimping and scrambling for a job. I know some of ya'll have families to support. Luckily, my organization is “me” and if I fire “me” then I definitely won't have any cash. However, God has been more than faithful to provide me with projects as a freelance employee =)
-I don't eat out as much
-buy more tuna =)
-keep things to snack on in my car so when the blood sugar drops I'm not starving and needing to get fast food
-thinking of creative (low-to-no-cost) ways of blessing people for their bdays.
-consistently tithing even if that 10% is little.
We've cut something like 20% for our budge for 2009 (still needs congregations approval). This means we've cut our cleaning service so people will have to volunteer to clean our church weekly. We've cut back lots of areas we don't want to cut back in, places like missions and evangelism, because everything is shrinking, and some things are ceasing. That's the cold hard reality of a small church with a tight budget in a tough time in a small town. Probably the reality in many other places as well. But we will live to fight another day. And God can still work with what we have, and in spite of what we don't have. He is God after all!
We cut my position. They gave me till the end of January though to figure something out and they have been pretty cool in the process.
I start by saying that we have been blessed incredibly this year. We are between pastors, with a interim in place, and… attendance is up, giving is up, ministry involvement is strong, support for ministries that meet the needs of families in our community is higher than ever.
That said, we are changing how we celebrate as a staff. Encouraging our people to celebrate relationally so that they are freed to bless those less fortunate. Backing off on tech expenses, etc.
i taught for ten years so i feel your pain! and, of course, you have to cover more and test more, too. keep up the good work 'cause it's worth it.
Yes, yes yes. Kill the bulletins. Save the trees. The bulletins tend to have 90% of the same info on them week after week anyway. I see them as a vestige of the past. We're all hip and modern now. People watch all the announcements on the “10B4″ anyway.
wow.