Budget crunch

Working on the 08-09 budget is getting tough. We have to replace 392 computers this summer- more than double what we did last summer. Apparently, five years ago we bought a whole lot of computers, so now they need to be replaced. We anticipated this last year and pre-emptively replaced about thirty more than we needed to after only four years of service to reduce the number being replaced this year. But 392 is still huge. It's putting a strain on our budget. I've already anticipated the unit cost savings from last year, and cut non-essential items from the budget, but I'm still about $100,000 overbudget. That works out to the cost of about 200 computers, so I guess that makes sense. 

The real downside is that it takes away from other initiatives, like wireless networks, LCD projectors, and an inline UPS for the data center. Perhaps these will have to be shifted to the building budgets. Well, not the UPS. I'll have to save that for a future year. 

Zach had a good idea, which was to earmark a large amount of money every five years for the "computer bubble," and then other years we make a large cyclical purchase, such as the inline UPS, network switches, or wireless network in a building. Assuming we replace 20% of our computers every year, that's around 300 computers. Compared to the nearly 400 computers we are replacing this year, that's an extra $100,000 (at today's price of around $500/unit).

Sigh....