Subject: budget help ! ! salaries , salaries , salaries ! ! ! everyone is having problems . unfortunately , many of you are new to your jobs and did not inherit paperwork to know what your staff ' s salary is . i have the average salary for each of the different staffing levels . i have asked the hr department to also give me the low and the high . let ' s face it - your staff today and their salary most likely are not what they are going to be next year ! to much movement of people . so using estimates and averages will probably be as accurate as using current salary levels . here ' s what you can do : 1 ) make a list of your staff just their positions . 2 ) then put down if you think i should budget high , mid , average , low , low to average , etc . you can guess at this based on their experience , length of time in that position , etc . 3 ) then i will calculate out an estimated salary to use for your budget . 4 ) here is the average : sr . $ 4 , 961 spec $ 3 , 964 staff $ 3 , 026 sr . clrk $ 2 , 548 clerk $ 2 , 264 asst $ 3 , 162 your list would look something like this : assistant average clerk very high sr . clerk low specialist low to average specialist average sr . specialist average to high analyst ( they are all allocated at the same amount ) you can , however , use the exact amounts if you have them . it ' s up to you . next item - training ! ! ! here ' s what you can do : 1 ) list your staff and the type of class they need 2 ) if you don ' t know the exact class you want to send them to , then list what type of class - for example personal enrichment ( i . e . time management ) or technical ( derivatives or applied finance or wellhead to burnertip ) 3 ) the personal enrichment classes cost aroung $ 500 - $ 700 4 ) the technical classes cost aroung $ 800 - $ 1000 . 5 ) just list the type of class , and i ' ll do the rest . next item - headhunters ! try 20 % of the new hires salary for their fees . other stuff - i have made a list of all of the unusual items we do during the year that people forget about at budget time ( i . e . flowers for secretaries day , birthday ice cream , offsite meeting costs , customer gifts ) . if you forget these items , i will make sure it is added to your budget . once i put all of your budget information into the spreadsheets , we will review them so that they can be adjusted as necessary and you can approve them . hopefully this helps you some . diane x - 37059