1. Since the Salary Budget is the largest cost for a nursing unit/department, what are some creative ideas you can identify to plan for the expense accurately?
There are numerous factors that affect budget planning for salaries. Things to consider; are the nurses in a union with specific wage agreements that must be honored? Does the state in which the manager is creating the budget have mandatory staffing ratios? Will the unit/department be utilizing clinical contract labor during the fiscal year? When planning salary expenses for the budget, reviewing retrospective data regarding historical trends for volume and acuity is a useful means of anticipating fiscal year salary expenses (Russell, 2015). In addition, evaluation