Question

Jackson County Senior Services is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing essential services to seniors who live in their own homes within the Jackson County area. Three services are provided for seniors—home nursing, Meals On Wheels, and housekeeping. Data on revenue and expenses for the past year follow:

		Total		Home Nursing		Meals On Wheels		House- keeping
Revenues	$	921,000	$	262,000	$	408,000	$	251,000
Variable expenses		477,000		117,000		203,000		157,000
Contribution margin		444,000		145,000		205,000		94,000
Fixed expenses:
Depreciation		69,900		8,400		41,000		20,500
Liability insurance		43,000		20,300		7,300		15,400
Program administrators’ salaries		115,500		40,600		38,800		36,100
General administrative overhead*		184,200		52,400		81,600		50,200
Total fixed expenses		412,600		121,700		168,700		122,200
Net operating income (loss)	$	31,400	$	23,300	$	36,300	$	(28,200)

*Allocated on the basis of program revenues.

The head administrator of Jackson County Senior Services, Judith Miyama, considers last year’s net operating income of $31,400 to be unsatisfactory; therefore, she is considering the possibility of discontinuing the housekeeping program.

The depreciation in housekeeping is for a small van that is used to carry the housekeepers and their equipment from job to job. If the program were discontinued, the van would be donated to a charitable organization. None of the general administrative overhead would be avoided if the housekeeping program were dropped, but the liability insurance and the salary of the program administrator would be avoided.

Required:

1-a. What is the financial advantage (disadvantage) of discontinuing the Housekeeping program?

1-b. Should the Housekeeping program be discontinued?

2-a. Prepare a properly formatted segmented income statement.

2-b. Would a segmented income statement format be more useful to management in assessing the long-run financial viability of the various services?

Answer 1