YoungHeart1980!

I hope everyone is doing okay. Today we had a prep meeting before the main meeting with the big boss (sponsor) who funds our patient projects for mental health of children. The program team at our department spoke up for me and acknowledged how challenging and difficult job I have to resolve this whole mess of the overspent budget situation.

The program team has agreed to stop spending, reduced the cost, and now they know they were operating from a false budget that was approved from a person that is no longer on the sponsor’s team. It’s just a domino effect of miscommunication on both ends of this partnership. We (finance team) received a change to the agreement with a revised budget, but not additional funds to the program, no communication went to the program about any change, did not notify the program team, both teams were working in silos. All this came to light from my end in today’s meeting. Just today I received clarity of the full picture of when and where it started to go wrong. One thing after another of no one tracking and no one telling the department that you can only work within the confines of the budget. Not even the central finance office that should be the last line of defense before that financial report goes out stopped the spending.

After today we now have a clear understanding and begin to make the proper adjustments. Now I have to prep for the big meeting on Tuesday and the be sure the financial numbers are correct down to the penny. I started to build my spreadsheet to make it self explanatory for the program team that are not numbers people. I have to make it as simple as possible for them, but also responsible to allow some flexibility to other funds they have to continue services to patients without disruption. I thought this small group of ladies wouldn’t show up for me and they did. I have heard from no one else and have been forced to stand alone in the face of adversity at work. At times I felt this was going to break me, but I became stronger in truth and consistent communication. All the Best!