2008 at Winona ORC

            2008 was a challenging, interesting year at Winona ORC.  We struggled with low sales for the first half of the year and then were extremely busy for several months.  We continued to develop new community based worksites and had good success with our placement program.  We finished the year with mostly positive results, seeing more referrals and people entering the program, a small net gain on the financial statement and renewed maximum accreditation from CARF. 

            The major challenge of 2008 was finding enough work for the 330 people with disabilities that we provide services, and this challenge may be even greater in 2009.  Our largest customer was severely affected by the housing downturn, and sales in our machining department fell by 36%.  We were able to find work for people, but the drop in sales really affected our finances.  We had to make serious budget adjustments which included cutting two staff positions and several hourly workers.  Remaining staff have picked up more responsibilities and continued to develop the program, making good things happen for the people we serve.

            We have really focused on finding new work both for our in-house operations and community worksites.  We did manage to increase the number of community worksites and sales volume in that area is up 6%, but sales overall is still 11% below the 2007 level.  One major success was running a month long packaging job at Watkins Products, with over 28 people per day, producing 398 pallets of finished goods.  This was during the busy part of the year.  We were also successful in helping people find their own jobs, with 96 placements during the year.  While many of these jobs were part time and people continued to work with us as well, it is really progress for people.

            The Board of Directors has been working with a new committee structure and they have put in considerable time on sales and business development as well as fund raising, and the personnel committee completed a revision of staff personnel policies.  While fundraising is also tough in these economic conditions we did manage to increase income from each of our special events. 

            Staff worked hard during the year to improve the efficiency of operations.  We move people around a lot, with many people working in our plant and also at one or two different job sites during the week, sometimes in the same day.  We also respond to the short term needs of our customers, so we may have 10 people working at a site for a week, and then it ends.  We have been looking at ways to minimize the movement while still giving people opportunities to do different things, and also looking at ways to keep schedules as accurate and efficient as possible.  We expect this to yield good results in the coming year.

            It seems clear that the economy is not going to improve quickly and we will have to adapt to the situation in 2009.  Our people need work and many of our customers will have to find ways of getting their work done with a smaller workforce.  We intend to help them meet their needs by responding quickly, providing high quality services when and where needed.  We will have to stay lean, but continue to develop the system so we can take advantage of the opportunities that will develop as things move along.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Harris