Budget Notes for Our Saviour Lutheran Church Expenses

Transcription

1 Budget Notes for Our Saviour Lutheran Church Notes 1) This budget is produced by, and approved by, the Church Council of Our Saviour Lutheran Church. This year s budget was approved unanimously. 2) If you have questions to submit about this budget, please submit it to the church address (oursaviourjamaica@nyc.rr.com) and refer to the line number. 3) There are gaps in the line numbers so that lines can be added, or subtracted, in the future, without too much trouble. Expenses Outreach this is the first section of the budget intentionally outreach is at the heart of what we do at Our Saviour and is the first part of our budget Line 1: Benevolence Synod this is our gift (based on a percentage of our giving) which goes to our local Synod. This monthly gift is used for Synod expenses, the Bishop s staff and a portion of this is forwarded to our national church to support the ministry of the entire church. Line 2: Benevolence Other this line represents gifts from our congregation to support other ministries, or organizations. This year, no money was expended. Line 3: Missionary Support starting with our own members, John and Haruko Hoyle, who became ELCA missionaries serving in Japan, we continue to support missionaries abroad. Last year we supported the Rev. Dr. David Kuck in Jamaica, WI and this year we are supporting Danae and Steven Hudson, who are serving in Jerusalem. Line 4: Postage money spent by the church, both for basic mail and for things like our monthly newsletter mailings, mailings of

2 seasonal postcards. outreach. This has been an important part of our Line 5: Evangelism Line 6: Website perhaps our greatest outreach tool this line item represents fees for hosting our site, fees for maintaining our domain names, as well as costs incurred for the calendar module and other expenses related to both our web site and our Facebook page. Very little was expended last fiscal year due to the timing of building a new web site and paying for that at the end of the previous fiscal year and not this year. There will be expenses in the coming year Line 7: Congregational Events most of this line represents expenses from the Community Carnival. Things like renting the inflatable bounce house, renting tables and chairs, purchasing the giveaway Bibles, etc. do not come cheap. This is a VERY important ministry of this church. Christian Development also known as Christian Education, or Development this part of our budget is used for exactly what it says, developing Christian growth Line 12: Line 13: Christian Education is what we spend on Sunday School materials, staffing, Confirmation materials, etc. Workshops/Events/Synod Assembly is spent on leadership development, especially the costs of sending our delegates to the annual Synod Assembly, or Convention. The other possible expense, though not this year, would be training events for leaders. We hope to utilize this line item more in the future Worship - this area of the budget reflects expenses incurred for worship at our church Line 18: Organists/Musicians this line represents what we pay for someone (mostly our former organist Gregory Leonardo) to prepare the digital organ files for worship. We pay Greg weekly to come and record the files for each week, a huge savings over

3 having a live organist. Included in this line is what we pay to someone on the days Iris Jaiserrisingh cannot be here to run the organ. Iris is a volunteer receiving nothing for her gifts to the church. Line 19: Choir Director the salary paid to our Choir Director, Gayle Bulaong, for her gifts to the congregation. For the past few years, there has been no increase in her salary, for , Church Council felt that she deserved a raise. This line reflects that raise. Line 20: Supply Preachers the stipend paid to pastors who preach on the days Pastor Bob, or the Associate Pastor are not able to preach. For the past budget year, this line reflects the stipend paid to Pastor Dabee for his gifts to us on Wednesdays and Sundays, however, in the new budget, this money has been moved to Line 36, where Pastor Dabee is now included in the Leadership category. More on that later. Line 21: Worship Supplies expenses incurred for any items used in worship; flowers, communion wafers, wine, paper for worship bulletins Line 22: Offering Envelopes this line is not limited to what we spend on the offering envelopes sent to members in the mail every month (which is on par with what the yearly numbered boxes cost, but yield better results) but, includes the printing of memorial gift envelopes at Christmas, Easter and Harvest. Leadership this section of the budget is for pastoral leadership expenses, whether Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor, or a youth worker. At the moment, it is largely taken up by Pastor Bob s salary, pension and medical. However, in , we have added Pastor Dabee to this category as his responsibilities with us have increased. While not a called Associate Pastor, he is now a vital part of the ministry team at the church. Line 27: Base Salary is based on guidelines presented by the Metro NY Synod for years of ordained service, merit increases and proposed cost of living increases (COLA) The COLA is

4 computed as a percentage of salary based on the US rate of inflation and determined by our Synod. This information is available on the Synod website at MNYS.org. This year s COLA was 1.65% Line 28: Housing Equity Allowance is added to the Pastor s salary as a benefit to the Pastor. Living in a church parsonage (Senior Pastor), or receiving a housing stipend (Associate Pastor) does not allow for a building of equity in a home like most people who own their own home. This small amount helps, over time, to allow the Pastor to build up equity to purchase a house upon retirement. Line 29: Social Security the church is responsible for half of the Social Security amount from the Pastor s salary. Line 30: Pension/Medical this line is based on a percentage of the base salary. Pension = 10% of salary required to be submitted by the congregation. Medical = the remainder. Both are paid to Portico Finance, the organization that manages the ELCA pension and medical funds. Note: the large increase is due to an under-reporting of Pastor Bob s base salary for the past few years that had gone unnoticed. In other words, his pension has been underfunded for many years. While this does not get that rectified retroactively, this does reflect the new yearly amount to be paid into the pension and medical fund. Line 31: Parsonage Expenses this line does not reflect anything paid directly to the Pastor, but shows expenses like utilities, water, sewerage expenses at the parsonage. Last year, it included telephone, but this year, Pastor Bob pays this expense. Line 32: Continuing Education this is something required by our national church, that the professional staff be given a yearly amount to pay for professional growth / continuing education opportunities. This has been rarely used.

5 Line 36: Pastor Dabee; Preaching the amount paid to Pastor Dabee for supply preaching. This amount is based on the guidelines set forth by the Metro NY Synod for supply preachers. Line 27: Pastor Dabee; Visitation One of the new roles for Pastor Dabee includes both visiting our homebound members and assisting at home services/wakes if Pastor Bob is unavailable. For these, he gets paid a per item amount per visit, or service. Line 40: Future Staff this line keeps the door open for hiring additional staff, in lieu of calling an Associate Pastor SUPPORT this section of the budget are expenses incurred supporting the ministry of the church. Line 45: Office Staff Salaries of both the Church Secretary and Office Manager? Volunteer Coordinator. A percentage of the Office Manger s salary is paid by the Preschool Line 46: Office Equipment mostly made up of the costs of leases for our copy machines, but also includes expenses relating to computers and technology upgrades Line 47: Office Supplies is just what it sounds like staples, parts, rubber bands all the things we need to run an efficient office. Line 48: Payroll Services fees paid to our payroll service for their services why a payroll service? We use a payroll service for both the school and the church to make certain that we are meeting all the requirements of the federal, state and NYC employment laws. The laws are just too detailed and constantly changing for us to take the chance on making a mistake. Line 49: Line 50: Accounting Services we subscribe to an online accounting software service (Quickbooks) There is a monthly fee connected to this service. An un-used line item reserved for professional fees

6 Line 51: Any miscellaneous expenses, as wells Christmas gifts for staff approved by the Church Council Line 54: Insurance covers both insurance to cover the church building and parsonage and includes liability insurance to cover accidents on the property. Due to ever-increasing costs in this category, as reflected in last year s budget, we bid out our coverage this year, and are now insured at about half the cost of last year, and with better coverage. Line 55: Utilities electric, sewer & water, natural gas, telephones Line 56: Repairs to Parsonage this line is in the budget in case there are any large repairs needed. As reflected in the budget, Pastor Bob usually takes care of these himself. Line 57: Capital improvements/preventive Maintenance Church: same as above, but for the church. In an old building we are always faced with repairs and upgrades that cannot be handled by Pastor Bob. While we never spend as much as is budgeted, we keep this line high just in case. Restricted Accounts Out when money is collected for a specific cause, or reason, it needs to be shown on both sides of the balance sheet. These were the monies collected in that were then paid out. Line 63: MAG (Ministry Among Guyanese) for the past number of years, Our Saviour was the steward of MAG s money. This represents money collected at their worship services. More was paid out than came in because the Metro NY Synod has assumed this responsibility and we closed out the MAG account. Line 64: Cancer Walk Money given in the offering plate for the American Cancer Society Line 65: Lutheran Disaster Relief Money given in the offering plate for relief efforts

7 Line 66: Youth Gathering Money given by parents for registration fees to this year s Youth Gathering. We have since decided not to attend this year, so this represents the refund of deposits to parents. INCOME Line 76: General Offering your gifts received in either the offering plate, or through on-line giving (which has increased significantly this year) Line 77: Memorial Gifts Worship - your gifts received through memorial gifts for flowers, bread and wine, etc. Line 78: Misc. Revenue unspecified money received as refunds / rebates Line 79: PreSchool Shared Expenses every year the Preschool gives the church an amount proportional to it s usage. This rent covers their share of the utilities, insurance and repairs. Please note that this year we will receive a significant increase in this money to the church. Line 80: Department of Youth Grant for years, we received $5,000 from the city for our youth programming last year the amount was reduced to $3,500 and this year, we have not been approved for funding. We have still not received money owed for last year. Line 81: Other Grants we receive matching grants from places like Thrivent Financial for Lutherans which goes into this category. If you have a policy with Thrivent, you can help the church by designating your matching grant money to go to the church. Line 82: Building Use money received from renting the building which we do not do very often, or received as a thank you from the Tamil School, or the Girl Scouts Lines Gifts received through special offerings that are designated to be given to other organizations, or for specified events, such as the Carnival, or Youth Gathering

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