by Nathalie Edmond, President, UUCWC Board of Trustees

This summer, the Board of Trustees has been focused on re-examining the critical role of the Treasurer in our congregation. At the annual meeting many of you voted in a new Treasurer, Patrick Kahney. Patrick has since stepped out of the role and returned to being a Board Trustee at Large. Following our by-laws, the Board has appointed, from among the current Board members, Jim Sanders as interim treasurer for this church year. One of the things that has come clear is how much the Treasurer is responsible for. It is really challenging for most people to be able to fulfill the responsibilities of the role without working several hours per week, which is not sustainable for most people who work full time and have children or other commitments.

One of the Board’s emerging goals is to carefully look at this important role and make some significant changes in the distribution of responsibilities. This effort coincides with our Congregational Administrator, Susan Irgang, moving to full-time. Part of the Administrator’s increased hours was designated to help with some of the treasurer responsibilities, for example accounts payable and payroll, but that only addresses a fraction of the Treasurer responsibilities. The congregation has been very fortunate to have Mary Baltycki, the new Finance Chair, volunteer a significant amount of time to assist with fulfilling some of the Treasurer’s responsibilities and start to look at how we can streamline our processes.

A task force, consisting of Jim, Susan and Mary and with input from others who have served in these financial roles, has been created to allocate the treasurer duties this year and make a recommendation for how we should proceed at the end of the congregational year. Our bylaws allow for treasurer responsibilities to be delegated. Discussions are starting about whether we might want to build a staff position for bookkeeping into the next budget, and consider the Board Treasurer as someone who analyzes the information from the Finance Committee and serves a reporting role, rather than the person who is performing the daily functions. We hope to have a more accurate description of Treasurer responsibilities by the end of the congregational year.

Another focus of the Board this year is to evaluate our policies and procedures given our new bylaws.

If you are interested in learning/discussing more about the redistribution of the Treasurer’s responsibilities and how that impacts the roles of the Congregational Administrator and Finance Chair, come to the Board chat on Sunday, September 29 during the middle hour or the Council meeting on Wednesday, October 23, at 7pm. You can also email the board at board@uucwc.org.