CovTech
Lvl 41 Alchemist
Simples
The budget means nothing and is just a stick to have to hold over the HoD
All department budgets are bunk, as the money is central anyway and if you need it, they'll order it regardless... so why bother tracking it
Money?
- Thread starter TheTemporayPreproom
- Start date
The budget means nothing and is just a stick to have to hold over the HoD
All department budgets are bunk, as the money is central anyway and if you need it, they'll order it regardless... so why bother tracking it
We do know what our budget is, but have to guess how much photocopying taken out of it.
Mostly run out of money just on the essentials anyway....
Snow-Globe
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
yep I don't really know what science budget is in total . I let HOD know what we need , she agrees with me or not . we buy stuff or not . I know how much money we could spend for equipment and exercise books because I was one making a order but science spent much more then I know off for items I don't know ( like photocopying ) if we near end of financial year and we " cant " spend any money till after Easter and I need something we use following financial year budget or credit card ...
The rep is actually very good (rare I know) and looking at some of these answers there are quite a lot of schools running an April to March budget so hey ho!
We do get really good discounts from this supplier so I am not really worried about the offers.
We just order until we are told we can't but can usually argue if we need something badly (the normal ask is is it nice to have or need to have). We also have a servicing budget, H&S budget & student PPE budget separate (all on different codes) - have no idea how photocopying is calculated but as long as I can order what we need then all is good!
That's a mad system!
We get a definite budget & can check the budget spend online.
I also keep my own spreadsheet so I can put the annual spends on before buying anything else. We also get a monthly photocopying list. HoD can then keep an eye on who is spending the most on it.
TheTemporayPreproom
I work with Carys
I wish that was the case here, we are very much held to our actual department budget. If we don't have the money in our science budget then they won't order it no matter what it is.
Or I should say finance won't order it.
We didn't pay for Photocopying until recently, and we were told the introduction of charging would initially be a no cost exercise as our budgets would be increased to cover it. That did not happen so we have been short of dosh ever since.
Tell me about it. I keep a spread sheet of spending. We used to know our budget but in the last few years nothing. Our budget is large compared to schools especially if you count in the servicing (about £10000) & PPE (about £7000) - don't know why we are not told so don't worry about it. I think I have only once been denied an order and once asked if it could be held to next academic year.
Our place wouldn't.
We would definitely be refused orders. We have been before.
We were told to stop photocopying once.
Purple Cat
It's real Science not Rocket Science
Bet that went down well.
We have an allowance on our ID cards for using the small photocopiers (all other photocopying goes to the main reprographics team) this is for small runs or single items but, since planning is required, guess what happens. We found that you can actually transfer unused credit to another person so we are finding out what people will trade for extra credit
You think they took any notice.
Here, we have a ID card that is linked to a league table.
The staff who are in the top ten, tend to be reminded to only do small amounts and the rest should be sent down to reprographics not done on our department computer. We've also been told to some of the lesser printers will likely be scrapped as the are leased and expensive to have on contract if not used.
So we are in this weird position where we are all trying to gear the photocopying to be mid table to not be in trouble and not loose our department printer.
The crazy thing is I was once in the top ten and warned not to over use it. I pointed out all that printing is done o.b.o the teachers!
At my last school the system when I joined was you got a printer access card preloaded with a number of copies. Technicians had 1000 and usually two cards, teachers had 250 and only one card. The main copiers we used were just off the staffroom.
I had Physics written clearly on both my cards, and one day left a newly topped up card in the printing area. When I went back it was gone. Emailed round asking if anybody had it. A week later it reappeared in the printing area but now had no copies left on it.
joined new MAT for next sept . we are now the same as TwitchFast. all orders have been accepted under new system and have started to arrive . so far so good.
Ours logs each user so that would prevent copy pinching like that.
The daft thing is that reprographics nothing is logged to a person, he just prints as many as people ask for trying to minimise colour as much as possible that cost x10 the price of B&W.
That is the system that replaced that. We have follow me too so that you can send to print and then walk to find an available printer.