The Department of Revenue wants to add more people to the unit that attempts to collect unpaid taxes through telephone contact. As a budget analyst, what questions would you ask after you receive and review the following request? Be specific, look at the data carefully.
Subject: Collection Telephone Pursuit
Currently there are 19 employees working on telephone pursuits on a full-time basis. Each employee can make an average of 25 to 40 phone calls per day. The amount collected by the 19 employees for the past year is $17,858,623. If we could add an automated phone system and increase our staff by 10 full-time employees, we could double the number of phone calls made and increase our collections by 59 percent, or $8,900,000.
2. City Library Performance Measures (2014-2017)
| Performance Measures | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| Materials in collection | 43,937 | 46,464 | 46,000 | 55,000 |
| Borrowers registered | 35,544 | 38,089 | 41,093 | 43,247 |
| Hours open per week | 56 | 56 | 56 | 50 |
| Book budget per capita | $1.05 | $1.10 | $1.15 | $1.40 |
| Library materials circulated | 187,481 | 188,203 | 188,050 | 167,365 |
| Patron visits | 111,550 | 110,939 | 121,167 | 103,491 |
| Annual customer satisfaction survey- # of respondents | 1,500 | 1,348 | 1,256 | 1,243 |
Please refer to the above table and answer the following questions:
Ø 2 (a): What does the table tell us about performance of the city’s library?
Ø 2 (b): In your opinion, what kind of performance information is useful in this table?
Ø 2 (c): How could these performance measures be used in budget decisions?
