By Sandee Steinberg, Finance Committee Chairperson

Now that the church year is underway, I want to update you on our committee’s work.

The committee consists of chairs and leaders of other committees, as well as members-at-large. Every month, we review the current state of the budget, as presented to us by our Treasurer, Denny Rodgers. We then discuss items of general interest to the committee and updates from the various committee members.

We are only at month four of our fiscal year, so there is little to report. However, we have the final numbers for the last fiscal year ending June 30, 2024. When Denny and Jim Sanders presented the numbers at the Annual Meeting in June, they predicted a surplus. The final surplus figure is $43,000, which was bigger than expected. The larger number is because of slightly fewer expenses, primarily due to not having to pay back the construction loan last fiscal year, as well as slightly more income because of high interest rates on some of our savings accounts and better-than-expected plate contributions.

The committee also takes a proactive approach to any issues brought to us by the Board or other church groups. We provide recommendations on financial matters to the board, ensuring the church’s financial stability and growth.

One such recommendation we made regards how best to pay the contractors for the construction project for UUCWC. As the church construction nears an end, UUCWC has started paying the contractors for their work. Thanks to George Faulkner, Capital Project Treasurer, we have detailed numbers of the construction costs and how much money we have raised in pledges. We have meticulously planned our finances, ensuring that we will have enough pledge money to cover these bills. However, we have not received all the pledge payments, as the pledge timeline went out through 2026. 

Because we expect most of these pledges to be paid, we have decided to take out a loan from ourselves rather than using our bank line of credit. This will save us from paying the 8.5% interest to the bank. We will need to loan ourselves more than $100,000. We have over seven months of operational expenses available as unrestricted reserves. We will use about two months of those funds as a loan to ourselves and will pay ourselves back as the capital campaign pledges are paid. The Finance Committee recommended this option to the Board, and they approved it during their September meeting. If you can pay your pledge sooner rather than later, that would be helpful. 

As co-chairs of the Stewardship Committee, Jane Root and Scott Blaydon are working hard to organize this year’s campaigns. Working with the Board and Kim, our committee, including Jane and Scott, discussed changing our annual budget process timeline. We want an initial 2025-26 budget estimate before the Board sets the goal amount for the Annual Pledge Drive. We will create an initial estimate of the 2025-26 expense amounts in November/December. I know this is earlier than our usual timeline in February/March, but we think it will allow us to estimate the annual pledge drive goal better. Finance will contact Committee chairs in late October/early November to get initial 2025-26 budget estimates. We will then follow up in the Spring to see if there are any changes to the budget requests.

We would love to have you join us as a member-at-large at our monthly meetings. It is an excellent opportunity to learn about the various areas of the church and to have some input into how the church raises and spends money. You can contact me at finance@uucwc.org to join us at a meeting or if you have any questions about the committee or this article.