This is definitely not planned, and I think it would not only be unnecessary but could potentially cause problems. I don't think the Church has any problem at all with some wards having a temporary negative budget balance; this can certainly happen when a ward is acting quite appropriately.RussellHltn wrote:I think it would be nice if MLS stopped writing budget checks if the balance went negative.
Consider a ward that is having a youth conference that is their biggest expense of the year. The payment for the conference might be due in the first quarter. I've seen youth conferences that cost more than one fourth of a ward's annual budget all by themselves, and of course there will be other expenses in Q1 as well. In the most common budget allocation scenarios, such a ward will then have a negative balance sometime in Q1. It might get positive in April, or perhaps it won't get and stay positive until October.
If MLS were to prohibit such a ward from writing checks, it would be a huge problem. Just because there are additional controls possible under the new system, doesn't mean it is wise to put them in place. There's no reason to change from the current procedure, where the bishop monitors finances at the ward level, and the stake president monitors finances for all the units in the stake. They counsel together to discuss any issues that may arise, and take prudent actions to make corrections only when necessary.