SCC Clerk Glen Nygreen called the meeting to order at
11:50AM. Nominations were accepted from the floor for presiding
officer, and inspectors of election. Moderator Geoffrey Parker was
elected presiding officer, and John Werner and Lois Lennon were elected
inspectors of elections.
Moderator Geoffrey Parker took the floor and reviewed the minutes of
the May 2004 corporate meeting, which were unanimously accepted as
written.
Finance trustee Nan Berke then introduced a proposed amendment to the
SCC bylaws that would eliminate the Outreach budget, and create a
unified church budget that would include Outreach and Operations
expenses.
Under the current system, pledges are allocated to the Operations and
Outreach budgets in a proportion specified by the donor of the funds.
There is a recommended allocation of funds between the two budgets that
is included in the goal budget presentation each year. Most pledgers
indicate that the recommended allocation should be used for their
pledge. In recent years, a handful of donors allocated a greater
than recommended percentage of their contribution to Outreach, and a
somewhat higher number of donors have allocated 100% of their pledge to
Operations.
The reasons for the change are as follows:
The current system is expensive to administer. Each
contribution payment (some of which are made weekly) must be checked by
the bookkeeper against the pledge card to determine the appropriate
allocation for the funds, and two ledger entries must be made for most
contributions. One for the Operations portion of the pledge, and one
for the Outreach portion. The production of quarterly giving statements
is also significantly complicated by the two budgets, and requires more
effort than is typical for churches. The extra work required by the two
budget system increases the cost of running the church finance office.
We have almost nothing to show for the extra expense. The
pledge allocation choices more or less cancel each other out, and the
final allocation of pledges is typically well within 1% of the
recommended allocation specified in the goal budget anyway. In
practice, we are making a choice, but not a difference.
A significant number of new, and not-so-new, pledgers have
complained that the purpose of the allocation is not apparent, and that
the current system is confusing. A single budget system would eliminate
this confusion.
As SCC member Don Daily pointed out during the meeting, the purpose of
having separate Outreach and Operations budgets was not to drive higher
administrative costs or confuse people. The budgets were separated to
ensure that some portion of the pledges were spent on outreach each
year, even during difficult financial times. Essentially, the
allocation of pledges to the Outreach budget functions as a sort of
tithe for the church. This is also reflected in the recommended
allocation to Outreach, which traditionally has been approximately 10%
of the pledges; also the traditional percentage of income tithed by
protestants.
In recognition of this consideration, a dedicated Outreach Fund would
be created to receive donations for outreach purposes. These would be
donations, not pledges, and would be simply credited to the fund as
they are received. The Outreach committee would direct the use of the
dedicated outreach funds, as well also the outreach portion of the
church budget. Outreach funds would be generally used entirely for
benevolences; and not for the UCC support contributions and dues that
are currently funded from the Outreach budget. This is likel to result
in more funds to contribute to our benevolences than the modest amounts
we have had in the past. The Trustees will also investigate the
possibility of creating a separate mission for health and human
services outreach with its own board of directors. This would enable
donors to apply for corporate matching funds from their employers when
they contribute outreach funds. The religious mission of the church
currently precludes us from receiving corporate matching funds in
almost all cases, even for outreach purposes that are entirely secular
in nature and would otherwise qualify for corporate funds.
A motion to adopt the new budget structure will be made at the 2005
corporate budget meeting in January.
Nan Berke and Resources Trustee James Cammarata then presented the 2005
goal budget. Here is a summary:
Total income is budgeted 1%
lower than 2004 overall
Total pledges are budgeted to
increase 6%, largely to compensate for income lost in other categories.
Other collections are
decreasing 30%. In 2004 this category included a carry-over of prior
year surpluses that is now spent.
Endowment income is expected to
be flat at 6% of the endowment, or $78,000.
Special Funding Projects is
expected to decrease 34% due to the fact that the category benefited in
2004 from a $20,000 one-time increase resulting from an accounting
change related to the church fair.
Use of facilities is expected
to increase 11%, mostly due to a 6% increase in contributions from the
SCC Nursery School.
Total Expenses are budgeted to
decrease by 2%.
Salaries are budgeted to
increase 3% in 2005, however full-time employees and clergy will be
required to pay 5% of their health care premiums in 2005, which would
only be partially offset by the increase in salary. Rev. Phil Washburn,
at his request, will receive an extra week of vacation in lieu of
two-thirds of his salary increase.
Worship and Music expenses are
budgeted to increase 2% due to staff costs.
Christian Education expense is
budgeted to increase 6%, also due to staff costs.
Office Administration expense
is budgeted to decrease 3%, largely due to the removal of the rarely
used pay phone from the Parish House.
Web site hosting and Internet access
expenses are increasing 80% ($480 dollars). The cost of the
service is not increasing significantly in 2005. The expense was
previously paid mostly out of memorial funds that have been exhausted.
Finance and Insurance expense
is budgeted to decrease 16%. This is mostly due to contracting a
bookkeeper to run our finance office. We had been using a CPA to run
the finance office for the last two years due to our need to
re-engineer our finance office processes, and bookkeeping methods. This
work is now complete.
Moderator and Pastoral Support expenses are both
budgeted at $400. Resources
expenses are budgeted to increase 38%. Membership
Development expenses are budgeted 6% higher to allow for more
ads to be placed in the Scarsdale Inquirer to promote church programs
in the community. The 2004 directory was published in the second half
of this year, so no directory publication cost is budgeted for
2005. The next directory is planned for early 2006. Parish Life is budgeted at $350.
Building and Grounds expense is
budgeted to increase 1%.
Outreach and UCC Support expense
is budgeted to increase by 8%. Benevolences are budgeted 30% higher
than 2004. UCC support and pass-thrus (OGHS, Souper Bowl, etc) are
budgeted to remain at 2004 levels.
The complete 2005 goal budget is available from the church office.
There was no new business to discuss, and the meeting was adjourned at
12:35.
