Stake allocation of Budgets

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
Locked
buntynn
New Member
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2014 12:02 pm

Stake allocation of Budgets

#1

Post by buntynn »

I am a fairly new Stake Financial Clerk. Can anyone tell me where I can get information on how the stake allocates the annual/quarterly budgets? For example, each ward's budget balance carries over from the previous year in addition to the amount that is allocated on a quarterly basis. How do I change the carry-over amount? For example, one ward will not be allowed any carryover, another will be allowed part, and one ward has a negative carryover that we would like to eliminate (make it zero). How do I go about changing the allowed carryover amounts by ward? Can I do this now, this late in the year? Guess I am asking how to get rid of the system-calculated carryover amounts and change them to what was authorized by Stake President and I also need to get rid of the one negative carryover amount. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
eblood66
Senior Member
Posts: 3907
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:17 am
Location: Cumming, GA, USA

Re: Stake allocation of Budgets

#2

Post by eblood66 »

buntynn wrote:I am a fairly new Stake Financial Clerk. Can anyone tell me where I can get information on how the stake allocates the annual/quarterly budgets? For example, each ward's budget balance carries over from the previous year in addition to the amount that is allocated on a quarterly basis. How do I change the carry-over amount? For example, one ward will not be allowed any carryover, another will be allowed part, and one ward has a negative carryover that we would like to eliminate (make it zero). How do I go about changing the allowed carryover amounts by ward? Can I do this now, this late in the year? Guess I am asking how to get rid of the system-calculated carryover amounts and change them to what was authorized by Stake President and I also need to get rid of the one negative carryover amount. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
You can't automatically affect the carry-over through the allocation system. You can only affect the upcoming allocations by adjusting the percentages.

So you basically have two choices. You can change the upcoming percentages to compensate for the amount they should or should not carry over. Or you can ask them write a check to the stake (out of the Budget Allocation category) to return the carry over or you can send a check to a ward (from the stake category of the same name) to zero out a negative carryover.

A variation on the first is option is to set all percentages to zero and then send checks to each ward each quarter for the amount you want to give them that quarter. But I wouldn't recommend that. It seems like more work than it's worth.

Personally, I don't think it's worth worrying about the carry-overs too much unless they are extreme. And in that case, I'd use the one time check method to ask the ward to return funds or to provide them additional funds.
User avatar
johnshaw
Senior Member
Posts: 2273
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:55 pm
Location: Syracuse, UT

Re: Stake allocation of Budgets

#3

Post by johnshaw »

You should look under the https://clerksupport.lds.org or documents around the solution. I'm attaching the 2011 CUBS Local Unit budgeting instructions, but there may be updated versions.
Attachments
Local Unit Budget Instructions - 2011.pdf
(490.46 KiB) Downloaded 432 times
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
User avatar
johnshaw
Senior Member
Posts: 2273
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:55 pm
Location: Syracuse, UT

Re: Stake allocation of Budgets

#4

Post by johnshaw »

The Most important thing a Stake can train their wards to do is USE THEIR BUDGETS - In 5 years as a stake clerk I was frustrated beyond belief that I saw Bishops doing fundraisers and asking parents to pay for church activities when they had 2K-3K rolling overages in their budgets. Teach the correct principle about what the WARD BUDGET funds are used for.

In our stake, Our Bishops understood that we would evaluate EACH year the spending and if a ward was not spending their budget it would be reallocated the next year because they had proved through their usage that the money was unwanted or unneeded. We started this in 2013 after giving them plenty of time to adjust to the new system in 2011 and 2012 (we had planned in 2012, and the Bishops fought back pretty hard indicating they all had specific plans for the money that was carrying forward - most indicated a desire to have a 'rainy day fund' which isn't anywhere in the handbook that I have read) - we added a caveat that if a significant amount of money was being PLANNED to carry forward (greater than $500) - that the specific activity must be known to the Stake Presidency and on the calendar.

It worked pretty well, but I CAN testify that it just didn't seem that they payed much attention until we started shrinking the budget allocation. They didn't seem to care that the budget wasn't being spent well or planned well, but the quarter over quarter losses in revenue was VERY explicitly noticed.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Locked

Return to “MLS Support, Help, and Feedback”