As president of your department’s Advertising Club, you are getting ready to plan your events for the upcoming year when you learn that your department, facing a serious budget crunch, has cut your expected budget from $12,000 to $7,000 for the year—a loss of $5,000. The club’s budget supports the annual Ad Club competition, sends the local winners to the national conference to compete for the top prize, funds a couple of local scholarships, and hosts a “shadow day” for area high school students to spend time on campus to discover what advertising students do. As Ad Club president responsible for the budget, you can decide how to make cuts yourself or you can appoint a task force to decide where to cut.

1. How would you weigh the factors (time, energy, expertise) in deciding how to make cuts?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages if you make the cuts yourself? What are they if you appoint a committee to decide the cuts?

3. If you appoint a committee, members will spend a lot of time together thinking through the decisions that must be made. What benefits might they gain by working on such a time-consuming project?