Last night I attended a budget meeting during which we, the members of the Board plus the members of the budget committee, were to decide on the 2013-2014 budget for the non-profit org I belong to.

I am troubled because both Plan A and Plan B proposed cutting back staff hours, hourly rates, or professional expenses. Yet we have large amounts of money sitting in our investment fund accounts.

I said that it sounded like Republican corporate America, where big business is sitting on large amounts of cash, doing well thanks to the bailout and the improving economy, while at the same time furloughing employees or laying them off altogether to improve the bottom line.

That is not who we are, I said. Loudly. Emphatically. And that I would NOT vote for any form of budget that had any cuts for staff in it. Nor did I appreciate the efforts to present two options--the awful one so bad that the less horrible one could be forced through committee and presented as a fait accompli to the membership.

On the spot, I wrote a check to compensate for the shortfall--not much money, really, but a lot to people whose hourly wage is $9 and who work part time. I had saved money, but I will cancel my proposed trip and the upgrades I had planned for my house to support our employees instead.

As you can imagine, my comments sparked a lot of "conversation" and in the end the better of the two budgets is being amended to protect staff and services. We will vote again tomorrow.

I am troubled both by the idea that we would propose balancing the budget on the backs of poor employees (the working poor) and that the budget committee would try to ram it through, by tactics I've seen many times in the workplace (bad idea making the alternative look good).

I wonder what would have happened if I weren't there? Nobody else said anything until I pointed out what was going on. Then they saw it and agreed with me.

I'm glad I made it to the meeting; I'm troubled in spirit by content and methods.