A Labour Day Budgeting Parable

I heard this story once and can’t find it online so I’ll paraphrase:

I was once acquainted with a cost-cutting consultant who ran a carriage (caleche) tour on the side and consulted in cost-cutting measures to organizations during the week. In his side busniess, he had two horses pulling the caleche through the park and people would pay and tip to go for a ride. He sold romantic rides to couples, fun rides to kids and families, and tours to, well, tourists. It was a nice side business and he got to enjoy sunny days in the park as a benefit too. His biggest cost of doing business was feeding the horses.

He was desirous of making more profit so he decided to cut back feed by 25% for both horses. He made more profit. He was quite proud of his businesss acumen that he had transferred from his day job. After a while he thought that he didn’t really need two horses and that one would do for weekend work. He sold the second horse and continued to feed his remaining horse 75% rations. His profits were awesome and he started to feel really flush and quite the good business owner.

Soon, that wasn’t enough money and he cut the feed rations for his horse to 50%, which seemed enough for part time carriage pulling. And eventually he cut the rations another 30% . . . the horse walked slower but he still made more money.

I met my friend the consultant and carriage driver walking through the park later this summer. I said, “Where’s the cart and horse? He replied:

“I really had that business going great. But I have no luck! As soon as I got the horse eating almost nothing, she up and died on me. Lousy horse! You can’t depend on anything these days.”

And the same is true of libraries. Libraries cannot live on love alone to deliver the wonderful community, research and earning services and programs we do, day in and day out.

Have a great Labour Day. Another great innovation brought to you first by Canadians.

Stephen