Tech Forum

Our stake was just reorganized and we were given two additional units. The prior stake had the utility bills sent to the stake clerk and paid via check but our stake has them automatically paid by Salt Lake and taken from our budget. What should I do for these new units?

ctl9lds wrote:Our stake was just reorganized and we were given two additional units. The prior stake had the utility bills sent to the stake clerk and paid via check but our stake has them automatically paid by Salt Lake and taken from our budget. What should I do for these new units?

What country are you located in? In the United States, I'm pretty sure that all meetinghouse utility bills are paid by the FM group -- they don't pass through stake accounts at all, and certainly don't hit the stake budget. In any case, I would think that you could consult with your FM group (probably through your stake's PFR) to clarify who has responsibility to pay these bills and how it is done.

When you say "utility bills" what are you referring to? In the past, I've seen stakes pay for telephone and internet, but I'm not sure as they still do. I don't think I've known of any unit to pay for water, sewer or electricity - at least not in the U.S.

These are telephone bills in the US

It sounds like either way, it comes out of your budget. For consistency, it would be nice if all units where handled the same way. You might call Local Unit Support and see what they suggest. But I'd also wait to see how aebrown handles phone bills. That might go though FM, but then the FM budget would have to be adjusted to pay for that. So I don't know was a mass-transfer mid-year is going to fly.

Ages ago, when I was a ward clerk, the bill was sent to the ward and the stake would give us money to just cover the bill sans long-distance charges. That way the stake payed for the phone, but the ward payed for long distance.

Looking in clerksupport, all I find is one article Help with Phone Service. It seems to point to a telecommunications audit, which might not be a bad idea.

My stake is located in Utah, which may explain why telephone charges are handled differently. Telephone charges do run through the stake account "Other" account, but are immediately reimbursed. There is no charge to the Budget category.

It seems odd that some stakes would have to cover the cost of telephone service from their budget allowance, and others wouldn't.

In the US and Canada, the stake should pay any phone bills they receive for bishops/clerks offices and hall phones using the Other account that will allow Church headquarters to immediately reimburse the amount.

Any Internet bills should be referred to the FM Group for them to pay.

In many areas of the US, phone service is billed to the stake via IROP, but that amount is also reimbursed by Church headquarters. My guess is that the new units do not have service through the Church provider in your area. You may wish to look at that, as well. When the Church provider furnishes telephone service, the bill comes automatically to the stake as you mentioned.

But for now, just pay it using the Other account tied to telephone service. Only the stake has that option in MLS.

At some point I was able to switch all my bills so they were paid through slc and just showed each week in an IROP. I went from processing about 8 separate bills to zero.

Check your Irops as a starting place to tracking it down. If memory serves its a third party that consolidates them