Are there any savings through attrition, retirements, contract expirations, unfilled positions?
Since the single highest cost of any organization is salary and benefits this area deserves careful consideration. It’s always advantageous to encourage early retirement, not fill positions, and evaluate the number of part time and/or contract employees before letting regular full time employees go. Unfortunately, you’ll often lose good staff since staff reductions are always the most painful aspect of any budget reduction exercise.. If you do have to reduce staff, it’s better to do at once rather than continuous reductions over a number of months. Morale can be better if large initial reductions lead to some people being called back to work in the short to medium term.
