Financial Management in Tough Times (LE@D)

A self-paced, web-delivered course offered by LE@D - University of North Texas. You will need an account with WebJunction to register for this course. The WebJunction account is free; the LE@D course costs $40. LE@D's course description follows:

Description:

You've just been told that your budget is being cut by 10% next year. Or perhaps you must submit a budget showing a 20% or even 30% reduction in the upcoming fiscal year.

• What services do you cut?
• Can the budget be cut without laying off staff?
• What is the long-term result of budget cuts?
• What about outsourcing?

Is it possible to improve library service to the community while cutting the budget?

Budget cuts can be beneficial to a library and a community. We must examine what our libraries do and how effectively/efficiently we do it. It's time to responsibly make the right decisions and make the necessary changes to negatively affect the minimal number of people in our community. And, in the process, we may find that our informed decisions have actually IMPROVED library services!

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, you will be prepared to:

• Make informed budget-cutting decisions based upon needs analysis, cost analysis, resource analysis, and impact analysis
• Do more with less by using technology, outsourcing, leasing, using volunteers, partnering, advertising, weeding and recycling, establishing memorials, merging and reorganizing, saving energy, and soliciting gifts

Throughout this course, you will also learn from your colleagues about how they made budget-cutting decisions.