Janice Waller, the manager of the customer service department at First Bank of Jefferson County, can hire employees with a high school diploma for $20,000 annually and employees with a bachelor's degree for $30,000. She wants to maximize the number of customers served, given a fixed payroll. The following table shows how the total number of customers served varies with the number of employees:
Total number of customers served:
Number of employees High school diploma Bachelor's degree
1 120 100
2
2 220 190
3 300 270
4 370 330
5 430 380
6 470 410
a) If Ms. Waller has a payroll of $160,000, how should she allocate this budget in order to maximize the number of customers served?
b) If she has a budget of $150,000 and currently hires three people with high school diplomas and three with bachelor's degrees, is she making the correct decision? Why or why not? If not, what should she do? (Assume she can hire part-time workers.)
c) If her budget is increased to $240,000, how should she allocate this budget?