Well the financial year 2005/6 has just ended in all Udon Thani govt depts. It has been apparently a successful period so in the salary slips issued today are staff bonuses ranging from 20,000bht for junior staff and up to 100,000 bht for departmental heads. So you can expect there to be a fair bit of partying going on around town in the days to come.

How do they decide on ''year end bonuses?Is it automatic and expected as part of the salary?Kind of a forced savings plan?Because if they are in fact ''bonuses'',what would happen if there was a shortfall in the Gov't budget?

Not being THat privy to the workings of city hall I can only assume that the bonus is calculated on performance and funded by cost savings achieved , ie; not spending as much as budgeted. It is by no means automatic, last year there was an overspend, so nobody got anything.

valentine wrote:Well the financial year 2005/6 has just ended in all Udon Thani govt depts. It has been apparently a successful period so in the salary slips issued today are staff bonuses ranging from 20,000bht for junior staff and up to 100,000 bht for departmental heads. So you can expect there to be a fair bit of partying going on around town in the days to come.

While many of the schools in the poorer sections still need books and supplies, the elderly need better medical attention, with the coming cold season, many people could use warm clothes and blankets, the orphans need.... And so it goes. TIT.

Certainly Marc. So much need , so little funding. I don't begrudge these bonuses though as they are achieved by departmental cost savings and do not eat funds from other worthwhile causes. Of course you could argue that they shouldn't have been given such a big budget in the first place to enable cost savings, but then your getting into interdepartmental politics and as everywhere in the world, each head considers his dept more important than others.The only answer would be increased taxation, and we all know how popular that would be

I know, I know. I like to question government spending. Of course, I think I could do better. But as mother likes to say to me, "if you're so damn smart, why aren't you rich?".
This is a good example of what irks me. During the months of August and September, the car park at the Ban Chiang Hotel was full to capacity, 3-4 days a week. I asked one of the Thai businessmen who exercises there, what was going on? He replied it's the end of the financial year and the different agency's were meeting to decide what to do with the excess budget money. More or less he was saying they need to spend what they got so they can get some more. I replied, but surely there must be less expensive places they can meet to discuss this. Ban Chiang Hotel doesn't come cheap. I said how about school auditoriums, cafeteria's, etc. He didn't seem to get it. He just seemed to accept it, that's the way it's always been done. And that's the way it will done next year.

Agree 100% Marc. Recently I walked into The Chareonsri Grand Hotel and a seminar was being held to discuss health care. The nurses in attendance some were from our local clinic which has recently been closing at weekends because of a lack of funding.Never mind, everyone slept in comfortable beds and ate very good food for three days, which is more than the patients could ever expect.
As for the budget its a case of spend it or lose it. For example if you use it all this year and a 20% increase is approved for next, it is applied to the total, but if you underspend this year the 20% only applies to the reduced amount. So that means a cost saving dept are in effect penalising themselves for all future years.Crazy aye?

Although I have no detailed knowledge of either Thailand

I worked for the state of California.The hospital was always short of funding in direct patient care areas causing staff shortages among the many areas.There always seemed to be money left over in other areas like building maintenace,landscaping etc. etc..At the end of the year,there would be very large expenditures from the areas with excess with the excuse that if the money wasn't spent,the budget would be reduced the next year!

There wasn't any provision for bonuses or anything like that!As a matter of fact ,we would have liked to have the access transferred to staffing needs,but that would mean the the hospital admin. would have to own up to shortages and that would mean their was negligence involved in patient care!