Last night we met with the Conference Council on Finance and Administration (CFA), or the new name for the Supportive Ministries Team. It was good to see a lot of new faces around the table and it with great hope that we begin the new quadrennial work.
One of the major issues we tackled last night was the Conference Budget Structure for 2010. We voted to keep the familiar legislative pieces RS 401 (Mission Share Budget/Asking), RS 402 (Disbursal Directives), and RS 403 (Endowments and Other Income). So the legislation structure will look the same to the Annual Conference next year.
We also voted to structure RS 401 in a new way. We will have four budgets and these budgets put together will make up the Mission Share budget/asking. There will be a Clergy Support Budget put together by CFA that will include things like D.S. salary, housing, equitable compensation, MEF money for BOOM, and medical insurance for student pastors etc. There will be an Administrative Budget put together by CFA that will include things like legal & audit fees, personnel costs associated with treasurer's office and mail room, and expenses connected with the Conference Center utilities and building. There will also be a Conference General/Jurisdictional Expense Budget which will include General and Jurisdictional apportionments.
The final piece of RS 401 will be the Conference Benevolence Budget that will be put together by the Conference Connectional Network. The Network will hold budget hearings for all the program agencies and other agencies connected to the network not outlined in the Discipline under the other budgets. The will develop their own process for hearings and new line items to facilitate the change in the conference structure and meet the mission, vision and core values of the annual conference. They will need to have their work completed by February so that we can put it all together in March and early April to be printed in the Pre-Conference Journal.
Things that the Benevolence Budget will have to care for is camping & youth ministries, campus ministries, training and resources, new church starts, missions and mission support, evangelism, religion and race, church and society, district programing, cabinet expenses and programing, personnel for programming/episcopal areas not under the treasurer's office, and conference sessions.
One of the tools that I hope the Network will use to facilitate this transition is the use of program pools. This would be money set aside to ministry in certain areas controlled by the network, for funding ministries of opportunity. It will be difficult to secure this money because it must be put together after staff salaries, programing administrative expenses, and structural business obligations such as CRM and conference sessions funds. It may be difficult, but I think this will be one of the best ways to move smoothly into the new structure.
Keep this in your prayers, especially Greg Cox as he leads the Network in this new venture.
Until next time...Grace & Peace
This weekend I attended my 25th Reunion with my Brother Rats from the class of 1983 at Virginia Military Institute. The weather was wonderful and a lot of old memories came rushing back to me. The best part of the weekend was getting back in touch with some old friends, the football game was a rout (VMI scored 69 points) and the parade was beautiful (but I rejoiced that I didn't have to march in it). We also got to present a check from our class for $4,000,083.83.
