Draft Budget for Fiscal Year 2020-2021
“Nurturing the Human Spirit for a World Made Whole”
From Susan Comstock, UCE Treasurer
It’s that time of year when the Budget Working Group, the Integrated Stewardship Council, and the Board of Trustees all collaborate to produce a draft budget which reflects the congregation’s priorities for the new fiscal year starting July 1. This year, we particularly thought about Nurturing the Human Spirit for a World Made Whole, and focused on how our wonderful staff lead each of us to try to live up to that mission statement. We held a town hall meeting last Sunday to present the draft budget to interested congregants.
As a reminder, we have three separate “pots” of money at UCE:
The operating budget is voted on by the congregation each year, thus, it is important that the board and the ISC hears from the congregation about the budget draft. Our Board of Trustees this year articulated the following priorities to be reflected in the budget—see my comments in italics by each one.
- Fill ½ time Director of Congregational Life position
a. Portfolio to include Membership and Social Justice
b. Seeking an ordained minister who will also be involved with pastoral care and Sunday Services
We have heard from the congregation that filling this position previously held by Rev. Eileen is key to us—we need a strong staff lead who will facilitate congregants doing the work most important to us.
- Support our interim work, including deeper exploration of our mission and end statements
After what was realistically a year’s delay, Rev. Karen is leading us through an examination of ourselves and our mission. She is with us for 9 months during this fiscal year and we are planning on having her for 6 months during 2020-2021. This is critical work to accomplish before we hire a settled minister—we need to know where we want to travel, and call a minister who is aligned to our mission and how we wish to live it.
- Partner with the greater community
Many in our congregation have articulated our deep desire to continue and expand the work we do in the greater community—see Point 1 above!
- Partner with our Religious Education staff to enhance our offerings to support our vision
Having Kathy Underwood as a full-time Director of Religious Education and Adam as partial support to her is allowing us to continue and expand our educational opportunities centered on our UU values.
- Pay fair wages and benefits to staff
We have a very strong and dedicated staff at UCE and it is important to pay them salary and benefits in line with UUA guidelines, the general market and employment law. Accordingly, our costs for our current employees will rise this coming year, primarily due to three factors. First, we had a couple of employees who moved from contractor status to employee status, the right thing to do given their duties with UCE. Second, we have several staff who were new employees during 2019 and will be in line to participate in the UUA pension plan at their one-year anniversary. Third, we are proposing a 3% raise pool to reflect both cost of living increases and the need to reward the strong performance of employees in what is a competitive job market.
What does this mean in terms of the congregation’s contribution? We are targeting a 4.4% increase in total pledges this year to support the exciting work we continue to do. And as that is the average increase in pledges needed to meet this budget, it means many of us will need to step up more than that to make up for people who have moved away or perhaps have altered financial circumstances.
Where does our budget fall short? For the first time in many years, the board is anticipating we will not be an “honor congregation” in meeting our national/regional UUA dues. Not accomplishing our interim work last year is causing us an extra year of interim expense, and in addition, we have the employee costs described above. Fulfilling our UUA dues obligation at the honor congregation level is important for many reasons, and we hope to get back to that status as quickly as possible.
To see the details, please stop by the office—Jessica has copies of the budget she can share.
Please let us know your feedback—email Susan Comstock at susan.l.comstock@gmail.com or speak to any Board of Trustees member. The budget will be adjusted post-pledge drive to reflect actual pledges received and feedback from the congregation, and then the full congregation will vote to adopt the budget at the annual meeting in May.