Finance

Finance Committee Meeting Minutes

November 12, 2015

 

 

Present were:  Church administrator Jennifer Gahnstrom,  committee chair Lulu Phillips, members  Jan Werness and Carole Megarry.  Notes from the meeting of October 15 were reviewed.  Carole will prepare the minutes.

The October Financial reports were reviewed and approved.  Lulu noted the numbers were looking better, but that this might be the result of two good months and not a long term trend.   Lulu asked Jennifer to prepare a report showing monthly figures for 2014 to see if this might indicate a trend.  She will do this.

We looked at income from fundraisers and it was noted one actually lost money and the recent Fire Roast Mountain Boys concert will yield little or nothing due to their expenses.  Losing money on fundraisers must be avoided.  The salary for the custodian now includes the money he receives from site management fees.

We discussed the pledge drive, and the Time and Treasures pledge form developed by Walter.  So far about 20 have been returned, with about three of them showing increases in pledge amounts.  We will do a “pitch” for a total of three Sundays.  Lulu did the first, Jan will do November 16, and Carole will do November 23.

We discussed the quarterly pledge/gift “status” letters that we have been sending.  Apparently at least two people in the past two years have expressed surprise or dismay upon receiving these.  It was agreed to modify the forms somewhat and to have two different forms, one for people who have pledged and the other for people who make gifts.

We discussed the budget and how it would be handled.  Salaries (at least the pastor’s)  must be set by SPPR by November 18, 2014.  A budget must be approved by the All Church meeting on November 25, 2014.  Jennifer has a start on the expense portion of the budget.  It was agreed that Jennifer would do the best estimates she could preparing a budget.  It was agreed that it was acceptable to the committee that the budget to be presented November 25 need not balance.  It is always possible to amend a budget in January when more information is known as to income and expenses.  Jennifer will get out a draft early the week of November 17 and committee members will make comments and approve or reject by email.

Jennifer informed the committee she was considering reducing her hours and transferring some of the communications responsibilities to Deb Ramage.  This would affect salaries in the budget.

Kim Miller has been in touch with Jennifer on the subject of setting an Adult Day Care program at Walker.  She would like to partner with an existing provider in this.  Members questioned whether there might be specifications for this sort of program which our facility cannot meet, also, if the proposal would be feasible, we’d need advice as to whether this would be Unrelated Business Income, and if so, what the tax effect would be.  She should work with the Building Use and Rental Task Force.

Minutes prepared by Carole Megarry- November 16, 2014