Administrators

[Guest]

Hello all my knowledgeable FS buddies

 

Can anybody tell me if they have an administrator? What they do? and how much they are paid?

 

The reason I ask is that 4 years ago we had an administrator (whom had been chair) and we nearly closed because we were nearly bankrupt! Administrator kept upping her hours until she was doing more hours than some of our key persons and getting paid more!

 

Now our current chair wants to step down as chair and become our administrator, I am getting a feeling of dejavue!

 

God knows we need one, simply because I work every hour under the sun doing paperwork; policies, funding, newsletters, fees, admissions etc etc ............... go on and on I'm sure you get the picture. I am feeling a little uneasy about the whole thing. Who is an administrator answerable to? I am really worried that the whole senario is going to repeat its self and we will all end up out of jobs!

 

Calming thoughts needed please

 

Debbie

[Guest jenpercy]

Hello all my knowledgeable FS buddies

 

Can anybody tell me if they have an administrator? What they do? and how much they are paid?

 

The reason I ask is that 4 years ago we had an administrator (whom had been chair) and we nearly closed because we were nearly bankrupt! Administrator kept upping her hours until she was doing more hours than some of our key persons and getting paid more!

 

Now our current chair wants to step down as chair and become our administrator, I am getting a feeling of dejavue!

 

God knows we need one, simply because I work every hour under the sun doing paperwork; policies, funding, newsletters, fees, admissions etc etc ............... go on and on I'm sure you get the picture. I am feeling a little uneasy about the whole thing. Who is an administrator answerable to? I am really worried that the whole senario is going to repeat its self and we will all end up out of jobs!

 

Calming thoughts needed please

 

Debbie

If these care unpaid hours - then perhaps you need to announce that you will no longer do them. Although I'm a fine one to talk cos as the owner I haveto do them. i have had help, but have noticed the same thing with hours expanding

[Guest]

We do have one, employed independently by the committee, as there was and is a need for one. She does a huge amount, and I would be lost without her. We did recently up her hours to every morning and she is paid the same as a key worker. In this day and age it is increasingly hard to find volunteers to take on the mammoth work load that is needed to sustain a business, which committee run or not is what we are expected to look like

[Guest]

I completely agree clare78baby, the face of a pre-school has changed completely, so much is expected of us now but the support is completely lacking. You can not expect unpaid Mums to take on a full time job and be completely experienced in accountancy, management etc but the government expect us to do the job of teachers with none of the support that they recieve!

 

Really sorry for the rant but am having a really bad day, thank you all for listening/reading

 

Debbie

[Fredbear]

Hi yes we are a committee run pre-school and employ an Administrator for 2 hours 5 sessions per week.

Initially we had a lady who came in for four hours per week, but it wasn't nearly enough.The lady we have now is an absolute godsend and enables myself and staff to get on with all duties regarding the children and their families and the paperwork that it alone creates.

 

I have to say she was our Chairperson in the past, but the job was advertised and she was interviewed like the other 5 candidates by a panel of staff, committee and an impartial person whom knew none of them. She was chosen to be the best candidate for the job and most certainly fulfills her role, having been with us over 4 years now.

 

All decisions regarding hours, overtime are made by myself with consultation with our committee.

The committee members allow me to do this as they realise i would not waste our much valued finances on flippant things especially in todays climate.

I don't know how many committee members you have but a chairperson cannot just decide that she would like to create this job and be automatically employed. This is great for you as it gives you time to work out hours, pay scales, job roles and costings of extra wages if your committee do employ someone, although not necessarily her.

Wishing you every luck in resolving this issue and perhaps making life a little easier for you.

[Guest]

Hi, we pay our leader separate admin hours every week (at least 3 often more) because I think it's best that she does all the admin tasks, as she knows how the setting runs.

 

We have in the past paid a bank staff member to do some admin stuff, things like going through old records and shredding the ones we don't need anymore. This was a thankless task and I really couldn't bring myself to ask an unpaid secretary to do it.

 

Do you have a cashflow? Can you work out from that how many admin hours you can afford to pay and set a budget for it? The problem with paperwork tasks is that they can often expand to fill the time so in effect they are endless!!

 

Also, you would need to advertise the job if it is a regular thing.

 

My feeling would be to find specific admin jobs that no one is willing to do, and pay those at an hourly rate, but I wouldn't personally want to pay someone to do all this committee/setting stuff that me and our leader do.

[fimbo]

if you are a registered charity you need to check to see if its possible to employ the (ex) chair. as it could be seen that they have created themselves a job. if you are concidering an administrator, then the position needs to be advertised and the applicants need to be interviewed. the chair cant assume she will get the job,as you as a commitee need to demonstrate that the best person has been chosen and produce evidance to support that.

 

our treasurer does the accounts and anything to do with cash, and i get paid a token number of extra hours to do most of the paperwork to do with the setting -letters, admissions,orders,newsletters,photocopying etc etc

[redjayne]

Slightly different situation with us - as a full daycare setting I have always had an administrator, she works 5 hours a day and is paid at a rate on a par with the administrator in the school we are based in. When I owned my own setting I did some of the admin (invoicing and general policys/ day to day paperwork, but did have an hourly paid external admin person who did my payroll and accounts (she worked about 5-6 hours a week and was paid accordingly), or I would have had no life at all

[Deb]

We pay an administrator 10 hours per week at £8.00 per hour. In my last setting I was administrator for 8 hours per week.

 

In addition to the administrator I also get paid for 2 x 3 hour sessions per week for administration and planning. Still do work in my own time though.