Moxie hired you, you believe, basically because of your technical expertise and your innovative, creative and imaginative ability (based on a battery of tests the Human Resources Department ran on you to check out your attitude and aptitude). When you were hired, you were told that the organization wanted you to make some changes in your unit to bring it more in line with company goals and to allow them to exploit the latest ideas in knowledge management. In response, you told them you were looking for a challenge. Even though you haven't had a lot of actual experience in managing, you were able to recall enough management terminology from LIS 405 to convince them that you were the right person for the job.

Lately, you have begun to sort out what you think are the most important services that should be supplied to your users, who are mostly either administrative personnel or researchers. So far you've made no changes in the services that the unit provides. Ms. Parr seems to think you're doing a good job, but of course, she knows very little about what happens in your section. Your staff members, who are more knowledgeable and who have run the operations while you have settled in, also seem satisfied with your performance to date.

You believe you have been blessed, on the whole, with a good staff. They are a strong and cohesive group. You have an immediate assistant, Sam Paynter, with the title of "Deputy," who has been acting head of the unit prior to your advent, although he has other specific responsibilities as well. You have one other professional, Mary Cain, and two clerical workers, Kimberly Shelton and Annie Jones. In addition, you have three part-time employees, (students from GSLIS) one of whom works 20 hours per week - Hal Watkins; the other two -- Brian O'Connor and Terry Stevenson --work 10 hours each.

Today you received a memo from Ms. Parr asking for your next year's budget proposal (due next month) and suggesting that increases be kept within 5% of last year's allocation. The budget that was approved for your department last year amounted to $500,000 in total - with $250,000 for personnel and benefits, $100,000 for operating funds, and another $150,000 for equipment and materials. The items in the budget for operating funds include supplies, telephone, photoduplication, travel, professional memberships, and other miscellaneous items. Ms. Parr informed you that you would have flexibility in moving expenses among the budget categories.

Your Task. Describe your information support service. It can be a special library, systems office, network management shop, technical information center, or any other information-related service that interests you. You can draw from real life or from your ideas about an interesting work situation.

Identify 3-5 primary services or functions that your unit will supply. Here is your chance to be creative and come up with some of the new services that you think will improve information provision in Moxie International.

Create a reasonable line-item budget for FY 2000 (the one your organization is working under now, that is, the $500,000 allocated as described above) and then create the line-item budget you propose for FY 2001. Provide justifications for increases and explanations for changes in categories of spending.

Then, using the 3-5 primary services/functions you identified above as a basis, present your FY 2001 budget as a program budget (that is, with costs distributed across functional or services categories).