Finance Committee Minutes
01-14-08
People Present: Mark Averill, Lyle Portice, Tom Jeppson, John Stinson, Jim Meretta, Steven Clausnitzer, Brian Kovak, Bill Lynn, Tracy Huffman, Cory Wernimont.
- Opening Devotional – Mark
- Approval of Minutes – All
- Welcome to new committee members (Lyle, John, and Steven)
- Pastor’s Rerpot – Tracy
- Suggests looking into phasing out envelopes for those giving via direct withdrawal system
- Jim still gives envelopes to all giving units unless requested otherwise, and would like to maintain the ability to give for quarterly special offerings and other special envelopes.
- Jim suggested putting the option to forgo envelopes on next year’s pledge form.
- Financial Secretary’s Report – Jim
- 31 giving units doing direct withdrawal
- Received a few more pledges for 2008
- Total $319,856 from 167 pledging units
- 23 giving units on the “waiting to hear” list, consisting of ~$20k in pledges last year
- Mark will get a letter out to these individuals in the next two days
- Technology working group update
- Discussed Church Management Systems representative visit
- Bill mentioned that there might be matching funds from the conference for us to purchase CMS software
- Treasurer’s Report – Tom
- Went over preliminary balance of year projections sheet
- General agreement that the projected outcomes for the year are very favorable compared to mid-year expectations
- Went over projection of budget reserves 12/31/07
- Went over Designated Funds Dec 2007 sheet
- Emphasized current efforts to increase the use of designated funds
- All of this information is preliminary before balancing things for the end of year.
- Old Business
- Stewardship update – Mark
- Going to meet soon to finalize the ’07 campaign and start on planning for ’08 and getting the spring drive and year-round giving in place
- Discussed goal of decoupling stewardship from budgeting process
- Mark will present a plan to Council on closing the ~17k gap in the approved ’08 budget
- Tracy suggested tithing on tax returns as part of closing the gap
- Sunday Counters – Mark
- January is covered
- Mark will put a blurb in the Spirit and bulletin, and will give announcements in service
- John volunteered to count and will contact Gary to get started
- ’08 Committee Budgets – Bill
- Committees don’t have their final line item budgets from the approved ’08 budget – need to get these out ASAP.
- Tom stepped through the budget items listing ones that are not finalized, and the following committees were assigned to the following individuals:
- Tom: Admin, Finance, Trustees, Caring Ministries, SPR
- Mark: Christian Ed., Worship
- Tom and Mark will get finalized line item budgets to Jim Behm for integration into the budget database – by Friday of this week
- Need a new person to manage the budget database – Bill
- John volunteered to take over and will contact Jim Behm.
- Busch’s Cards - Mark
- Mark will give the paperwork to Nicole Hultgren within a week
- New Business
- Need a person to manage website updates for Finance – Mark
- Lyle will take care of this
- Deferred discussion of audit 06/07 until next meeting.
- Closing - Tracy
Please note that these minutes are preliminary and have not yet been approved by the committee - a final copy will be sent following the February meeting.