A kindergarten client was consistently incurring staff costs below budget. The current year’s treasurer couldn’t figure out why until I drilled down into the budget workpapers prepared by the previous treasurer for the next year. We discovered that the treasurer had allowed $1000 per fortnight for relief staffing. That allowance reflected the previous year’s actual pattern of costs. But this year we were not seeing anything like that level of relief staffing costs being incurred.
Then someone pointed out that the Kindy had moved the staff to a nine-day fortnight, and suddenly the staff members weren’t needing anything like the number of sick days recorded previously.
Moral … flexibility on staffing arrangements can have a double benefit: happier staff and lower employment costs!
