Finance

Minutes of the Finance Committee Meeting of May 11.2016

Present were:  KC Bretzke, committee chair, Carrie Feldman, staff, and member Carole Megarry. Pastor Lockhart is at General conference.  Joe Hesla attended with a proposal.

The minutes of the April meeting were approved.

Financial Reports.  Were reviewed.  KC requested that CF prepare a month by month report of income and expenses.  It was noted that we have received a real property tax bill which is in fact a special assessment.

Donations are low by approximately $9,300 through April 30.  We discussed fund raising.  Rentals are quite fully booked.  Adding more rentals would mean more custodial time; possibly rental rates could be increased which should be discussed by trustees.

Question of whether it makes any sense to return to selling Christmas wreaths.  Many of those records having been lost in the fire, CM agreed to see if she had hard copy of old reports that would show what we made.

How might expenses be reduced?  It was noted that there had been earlier discussion about eliminating phone land lines.  This needs to be investigated.

Fiscal Agency Requests.  Joe Hesla appeared with a request for a one time fiscal agency arrangement.  It seems that one of the Unitarian churches held a fundraiser for the $15 NOW organization, which is a 501©(4) group engaged in lobbying.  The concept was that if WUMC became the FA for the group, we could receive these funds and transfer them to $15 NOW.  Questions were raised about the legality of such an arrangement, if the intent was to make the donations tax deductible as charitable contributions.  CM agreed to check into this through her Bar Association connections and advise the committee.

Minutes by Carole MegarryFi