Question

Jennifer Benson is the Registered Dietitian (R.D.) responsible for all dietary services at City Memorial Hospital. Her operation consists of two departments. The first, and largest, is patient feeding. It consists of the tray line staff and the majority of her food production staff. The second department is the public cafeteria, which includes special dining areas for staff and a large dining area for patient visitors. Annually on January 1st, she submits to her supervisor an annual labor expense budget broken down by month for each department. In June, and after four months of consideration and planning, Jennifer and her staff were excited to implement a new cafeteria menu. The response from the public was excellent. The dining room staff reported that there were many positive comments about the food selected for the new menu, and the production staff reported a 25% increase in the amount of food prepared for cafeteria service. On July 7th when Jennifer’s assistant, Joe, brought her the financial reports for the month of June, he was quite agitated. "I think we are in trouble Boss," he said. "As I read the reports, we were over our labor budget by more than $3,000 last month! How did that happen?" Jennifer reviewed the labor portion of the budget and found the following:

June budget: patient labor $23,750; cafeteria labor $16,500

June Actual: patient labor $23,824; Cafeteria Labor $19,850

1. What do you think is the cause of Jennifer’s labor budget overages? How would you determine if you are correct?

Answer 1

The increase in the amount of food prepared for cafeteria service is the cause of Jennifer's labor budget overages.

Step-by-step explanation:

The cause of Jennifer's labor budget overages is the increase in the amount of food prepared for cafeteria service. The production staff reported a 25% increase in the amount of food prepared for cafeteria service, which led to increased labor costs in the cafeteria department.

To determine if this is the correct cause, Jennifer can compare the actual labor expenses for the cafeteria department in June with the labor expenses from previous months or the same month in previous years. To confirm this, Jennifer should analyze labor hours and workload before and after the new menu introduction, review overtime records, and compare the number of meals served with the increase in labor cost.