Tuesday, October 28, 2008

ah, 15% of that

The exercise was easier than I expected. That does not mean it didn't hurt. Not quite the corncob pain I remember from past austerity dances. No, this was a little less invasive.

With my general operating line item still intact, I was able to surgically remove approximately 47% of my hardware/software line item. With 2/3 of desktop machines upgraded in the past year and the remaining third still only 3-5 years old, I'm feeling confident we can weather the rest of this fiscal with what we already have. With our file, print, and mail servers now centralized with main campus, our only big metal assets are a large web server, one large web dev server, one small app server, a dedicated LMS box, and one test box. All relatively new with the server OS already paid for.

See, I already feel better looking at my justification in print. So what doesn't get done? Well, our training and travel budget was going to come out of the hardware/software line item because we were charged on July 2 for last fiscal's travel. Thank you budget office. That means no conferences, training, re-certs, junkets, seminars, etc. It also means looking for more creative ways to provide professional development opportunities to a staff that thrives on and requires continuous learning.

It's going to be a rewarding next couple of months.

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