Midyear Budget News from our Treasurer

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA NEVADA CONFERENCE UCC
UPDATE ON FY 2009-10 OPERATING BUDGET

Typically I only provide one Annual Gathering report on the Conference’s financial situation in addition to participating in the financial discussions that take place at Conference Council meetings. This year however is an atypical year due to the financial, social and spiritual challenges we are all confronting both individually and collectively.  The good news is the Good News of our faith.  We can take comfort in knowing that we can draw on power and wisdom beyond ourselves in meeting our challenges.

We may also be comforted by knowing that our Conference is well led and well served through our work together to support, unite and nurture what we believe we have been called to do.  I am also impressed that together we seem to have avoided the pitfalls that during a downturn can too easily change a struggling organization into a failing one.     

The bad, or more correctly expected news, is that we likely have more struggling to do.  Annual Meeting 2009 authorized a Goal Budget for the July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 fiscal year totaling $1,098,000 in revenue and expenditures.  Also voted was a Commitment to Sustaining the Ministries of the Conference that called on local churches to increase their financial support by: (a) continuing to move towards becoming Covenant Keepers (giving 10% of expenses to UCC Share), (b) contributing a UCC Share of at least $63 per member in FY 2009-10, and (c) increasing their UCC Share by $9 per member by December, 2009.  The commitment resolution acknowledged that if financial support to the Conference did not increase accordingly, reductions in Conference ministry would need to be made.

During the first half of this fiscal year David Bergman-Hill was particularly busy working with many of you to gauge how the Annual Meeting Commitment was able to be honored as churches prepared their 2010 budgets.  Unfortunately, while some churches were able to increase their support, declining membership and the impact of the recession on other churches appears to have kept us from the goal. Based on Conference revenue received for the 2009 calendar year, 56 churches gave $94,000 more, 55 churches gave $105,000 less, 18 churches gave the same, and 20 churches, or 7 more than in 2008, provided no financial support.

Taking this all into account, as of the end of December, revenue for the fiscal year ending June, 2010 is projected to be $975,500, which is $122,500 or 11.2% less than the Goal Budget.  Expenditures are projected to be $1,054,800, which is $43,200 or only 3.9% less than the Goal Budget.  If these projections become reality, we will end the fiscal year in June with a $79,300, or 7.2% deficit, which could only be funded by further depleting our scarce reserves.

If our churches at this time are providing all the financial support that they possibly can  through regular UCC Share giving, an extremely generous and successful 100K Run could eliminate the projected shortfall.  If that level of support does not materialize, and assuming a continuation if not deepening of the recession through the rest of 2010, we will have to begin now to budget for staffing reductions in our FY 2010-11 budget that begins July 1.  Based on ministry reductions that have already taken place, holding expenditures next year to expected available funding will be a very painful process, but a necessary one in fulfilling our stewardship responsibilities.

John Meermans, Treasurer
March 2, 2010