BOT Report on the Nov 18 Board Meeting: December 3, 2021

At our regular November meeting, we devoted considerable attention to Board priorities regarding the pending annual pledge drive and the 22/23 UCE budget.  We realized that this will be a challenging year, financially.   

We developed a balanced budget this year despite the loss over the last couple years of significant rental income and the loss of our largest pledge, due to changes in their circumstances.  This happened with important increases in pledges and to a nonrecurring $72,000 federal PPP grant.    

The first pass for next year, which importantly aims to maintain current programs and staff, projects an operating shortfall of about $46,000.  (This does not include any additions to programming or personnel.)  

The Board has asked the Budget Working Group to look for new resources and to consider using existing resources in different ways to increase funds available for the budget.   

We also discussed a proposal that Endowment funds cannot be used for issue advocacy.  Our research has shown that we can indeed use any of our resources to advocate for issues which support our UU values, as long as we stay within the IRS rules in this regard.  Our present and past activities have stayed within federal requirements.  A special Board meeting will be held December 15 for the purpose of considering the grant applications submitted by the October 31 deadline. 

More routine issues included policy governance monitoring of Treatment of Staff and Compensation and Benefits, noting that some of our staff positions pay below the UUA mid-point for metropolitan congregations of our size. 

The next regular Board meeting is December 16 at 7:00 PM via Zoom. All are welcome.