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Mid-Year Budget Change

by Scott
(Los Angeles, CA, US)

Our church leadership has been advised to raise certain budget line items mid-year.

Specifically, when an expense class has been exceeded, the deacons review the expense class that has exceeded budget and vote to raise the budget.

The problem that I see here, is that the deacon board is only 10 men and the church budget was adopted and voted on by the church at the beginning of the year.

The raised budget items are never brought to the church as a whole and the congregation is left in the dark about the budget ever being exceeded.

I've always been taught that the budget tells the story or forces the story to be told. If you exceed budget, notify the deacons and then the congregation as to why it was exceeded. I'd love your opinion on this matter.

Scott

Comments for Mid-Year Budget Change

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May 04, 2016
 Budget Change
by: Richard

I wish you had received some responses to your question, I would have liked to see the answers.

I have been going through the same thing and refuse to change the budget. The budget was voted on and passed by the membership at the beginning of the year.

As treasurer you have a fiduciary responsibility to the member congregation. The only way a budget should be changed is if it is resubmitted to the congregation and re-voted to make any changes.

If an account is over or under budget, so be it. By changing a church annual budget, how can you possibly create accurately the preceding year budget without the history generated by the original budget and the end of year P/L?

Thank you for the question and your comments, I look forward to other comments.

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