by Alan Hill, Chair
Starting in July we began a contract with Clergy Financial Resources to provide accounting and payroll services for the church. We’ve sorted through a few issues with the conversion of our balances to a new system and the proper coding of expenses. The underlying transactions will continue to be reviewed going forward to ensure accurate reporting.
Attached are summary budget and designated accounts through August 20, 2026. For comparison I’ve included a column of our revenue and expenses through August 2025.
Pledge income appears to be significantly higher through the year-to-date. Each year some members pay their pledges in the prior year for tax reporting purposes. In the past, Catherine Cake, our former accountant, would accrue the prepaid amount in equal amounts each month. Our new bookkeeping firm transferred the remaining prepaid pledge payments to current year pledges in July. This change means an additional $80,412 was added to pledge income in July. Without this change, pledge income would still be slightly higher year-to-date in 2026 than for the same period in 2025. Other revenue sources are not far off from prior year amounts.
While the amount spent on salaries and wages is about $13,500 higher than for the first eight months of 2025, spending on benefits is about $10,000 less. The largest part of the increase in salaries and wages is from the new Executive Director position. Most all the reduction in benefits is from the departure of employees that had health insurance. There is currently only one full-time staff person with the health insurance benefit.
Total expenditures on operating expenses are down about $2,000 year-to-date from the 2025 total. While there is a large reduction in mortgage payments, we have paid three- quarters of our large insurance premium through July where we had only paid one-half through July in 2025.
Expenditures on programs through July are up about $2,000 from the same period in 2025. The increase is mostly from expenditures on the high school program.
Other expenditures are virtually unchanged. The budget has not contributed any funds to the capital reserve in 2026. We have $656 in uncategorized expenses that we need to work with our bookkeeping firm to identify and move to the correct expense categories.
Through July we have received $142,348 more in revenue than we have spent on budgeted items. This includes the additional $80,412 pre-paid pledge income.
The biggest change in designated accounts is the increase in funds for facilities and equipment. A little over $266,000 has been received so far this year from our 60th anniversary capital campaign. The campaign committee and others have agreed that we will allocate 60% of these and future campaign contributions to immediate buildings and grounds repairs, and 40% will go for strategic upgrades for missions and new revenue.
For immediate repairs, $51,854 has been spent this year on re-piping the church, fixing the settling of Reimer Hall, and a 50% deposit on replacing the accordion wall in Reimer Hall.
The committee has agreed that any funds left from contributions to capital projects not spent or obligated by April 30, 2030 will be contributed to the endowment.