Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
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@sidereal imagine if the system had been “if you don’t use all of your budget then 30% of the savings will be allocated to your group as a bonus.” Think of the incentives to keep old equipment working, only buy items that last, to find creative ways to stretch that budget.
@jonatin IDK if the solution here is kickbacks! But maybe I’m wrong
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@shansterable well, of course one could argue that leaving part of the budget unallocated is the least efficient option of all
At a university I once worked at the chemistry department had a store where professors could go buy platinum on the last day of their funding cycle, hold it in their lab, and then return it for a refund into their account at the beginning of their next cycle.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
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At a university I once worked at the chemistry department had a store where professors could go buy platinum on the last day of their funding cycle, hold it in their lab, and then return it for a refund into their account at the beginning of their next cycle.
@BE
That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. LOL -
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal I also despise the related “I know you listed this on the budget for spending in October and you don’t have enough team members to do it earlier anyway, but you didn’t spend it by July so we are giving the approved budget money to someone else.”
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@BE
That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. LOL@shansterable @BE Stupid systematics require clever workarounds.
At my alma mater the argument for having next years budget cut down was that it implied more efficient budgeting among all departments for the upcoming year.
What it really implies is that you get punished for being thrifty.
For governance budgeting it sometimes even gets more stupid as you also have to compensate the potential interests that have been missed on those unspent funds.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal So much this.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal It makes total sense if you never think about it longer than it took you to read it (the part in quotes, not your post. Your post makes sense).
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal Up there with the maxim that a business (or an economy) that isn't growing isn't a success.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
Invest the surplus and use it 2 years later.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal I first witnessed this when I was working in the National Health Service on a student placement during my degree. March arrived and we suddenly had to spend loads of money on things we didn't need "or we wouldn't get it next year".
It seemed wrong then and it seems wrong now.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal I used to work at an online shop who also supplied public institutions such as schools, universities and even police (for non critical tech at least).
And the end of the year was always wild. Like police stations calling to order stuff literally like "we have 14.000€ to spend and there's a world cup next year, can you recommend a projector?" 🫠
Next thing you hear is "there is no money to [insert ridiculous things not to spend money on] left.". Like no money for soap and toilet paper in public schools...
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I was do relieved when HMT agreed we should use accruals accounting.
Before that, if I commisioned work that ended after the last week in March they'd take the money off my budget even though I owed it.
We'd contact everyone asking them to send their invoices in early.@tiggy @sidereal
Lord yes. The public library service I used to work for spent 40% of the book fund in March and accessioned 40% of the stock in April. (There was 40% to be spent every year because it wasn't until the beginning of December every year they could be sure they were allowed to spend any of it.) -
@lionelb IDK if accountants are responsible for this one!
They're not. Source: My mom (now retired) used be an accountant her whole working life.
It was one of her recurrent complaints (still is).
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You are right. I should have said accountancy practice.
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
Used to see it at my job. Purchasing and accounting people hated the year end craziness
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal That's why "efficiency schemes" exist in the regulation of monopolies. If a utility underspends it gets to keep a fraction of it, but remainder is returned to customers through reduced costs. One example used for energy in Australia:
https://www.aer.gov.au/industry/registers/resources/schemes/capital-expenditure-sharing-scheme-cessPublic service use it or lose it approach is a wasteful ratchet, and "productivity dividends" are blunt instruments for clawback.
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At a university I once worked at the chemistry department had a store where professors could go buy platinum on the last day of their funding cycle, hold it in their lab, and then return it for a refund into their account at the beginning of their next cycle.
@BE @sidereal @shansterable that's an amazing way to launder fiscal year funds into zero year funds
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Whoever came up with the system “if you don’t allocate all of your yearly budget, your budget will be smaller next year” is responsible for so much human misery and wasted money
@sidereal When I worked at for a city owned theatre this logic existed when working with the city for our yearly budget. One year the executive producer took it further. Not just max out the budget but exceed the budget so that in the following year, it would be clear to the budgeters we would need more money.
We produced some incredible work that season but IIRC we were like ~1 million dollars over budget. The EP resigned rather than go through an investigation and our budget was cut the following season.
The interim between leaders was really excellent though because it was basically the people who ran the theatre making all the decisions. Closest few months I've ever been to a worker ran environment.
