When revising the budget, do you normally present the changes proposed by the board for a vote of the membership at a general meeting, or can the board hold a vote amongst themselves to revise the line item amounts?
I would suggest listing your programs from most important to least important (and you need to decide what the factors are in deciding this-morale, educational enhancements, entertainment etcetera). Put the costs of each event (if you're able to reduce the cost of the budget by changing things up slightly i.e. a potluck versess a "free pizza" event). Once you've got things listed walk down the list and draw a line where you can no longer fund things. This is called a decrement list. If more money becomes available (and the dates work) you can add an event back in or maybe think about new events that are self funding (i.e. a dinner and a movie night where you charge a nominal fee for a recently released show). Dances are usually inexpensive, if you find a good DJ (who is willing to let you pick/approve the songs) and then you can sell pizzas by the slice or whole.
I think you have to be discriminatory when re-working your budget. The most "damage" will occur with across the board cuts as your board would be ignoring various factors in order to quickly create a revised budget. Instead, based on your new budget, some items will be reduced, others will be eliminated, and still others will remain fully funded. It all is dependent on your school, your goals, and numerous circumstances.
Our fall fundraiser looks to be about half of what we have done in the past, which we knew would be a risk this year. We know this will require us to likely cut our operating budget for the year. What would be the best option to do this task? Cut everything across the board by a certain percentage, or be discriminatory in our cuts and cut some programs, or eliminate some bedget items altogether, while keeping other fully funded? I am sure there are pros and cons to both, but what have others done in the past, and which is better received by the school, teachers and parents?
