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2003 Administration
Report
ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE
2003 ANNUAL REPORT
The
Administrative Committee’s activities during 2003 primarily concerned
budget, accounting, staffing and stewardship matters.
1. Budget. At the February, 2003 Session meeting,
the Administrative Committee make recommendations concerning
the salary portions of the 2003 budget. (The
Session had previously approved that portion of the Church’s 2003 budget
specifying nonpersonnel-related expenditures.) These included a proposal to review the
Associate Pastor’s position. This
led to the decision of the Session and congregation to dissolve the Associate
Pastor position, effective
During
the fall of 2003, the Committee developed a proposed 2004 budget to present to
the Session, which the Session approved, with changes, at its December 2003
meeting. At the Committee’s
recommendation, an “Executive Committee”, consisting of the committee
chairpersons made salary recommendations to the Session for the 2004
budget.
A
key portion of the Church’s budget is income from the Church Corporation,
which holds investments as an endowment to support the Church. While not a decision of the Administrative
Committee, the Session decided to try to limit spending from the Church
Corporation funds to 5% of the market value of the funds. This is a standard formula used by many
organizations to ensure preservation of endowment principal. In the past few years, the church has spent
more than 5% of Corporation funds. Due
to better than anticipated financial results this year, the church came close
to conforming to this level in 2003.
2. Accounting. During 2003 Vickie Coffin as Treasurer made
major progress in improving our accounting records and procedures. We also contracted with an external
bookkeeper to handle our payroll transactions, which had previously been
handled by the Church secretary. Payroll
transactions are the most complicated we have and represent the area were we
run the most risk from mistakes such as misfiling of employment taxes. The outside bookkeeper has expertise in
handling these transactions.
3. Staffing. Staffing matters are closely related to
the budget. In order to reduce the
long-term strain on the budget, the Committee made several recommendations to
the Session in addition to the decision on the Associate Pastor’s
position, which were adopted:
(a) That the steward position (then vacant,
except for temporary help) be eliminated, that the steward’s cleaning
functions be performed by a janitorial service, and that the steward’s
Sunday morning tasks be carried out by volunteer Church members; and
(b) That the full-time secretary’s position
be eliminated and replaced by a part-time secretary and an outside bookkeeper to
perform some of the secretary’s financial duties. Along with this change in responsibilities
and hours we were pleased to hire a new secretary, Rosemary Madill.
Other
staffing matters the Committee addressed included recommendations to the
Session that: (i) the secretary be paid for holidays on which
the church office is closed; (ii) each Church employee be
allowed ten (10) sick days per year, with no rollover of unused days from year
to year, and with any excess sick days to count against vacation; and (iii) the
Pastor be allowed to carry over one of his four 2003 vacation weeks to 2004,
for his 15th wedding anniversary.
The Session also agreed this year to create
an Executive Committee composed of the chairs of each Session committee which will
have responsibility for critical staffing questions in the future. This will include performance evaluations,
recommendations on pay increases, and decisions to eliminate, add, or change
the hours for positions. As noted above,
the Executive Committee was convened for the first time this Fall to make
salary recommendations for the 2004 budget.
4. Stewardship. Stewardship is one of the
Committee’s responsibilities, and David Maddox headed the 2003
Stewardship campaign. We had a
successful stewardship campaign in which we stayed essentially constant in the
number of pledge units and the total amount pledged.
Respectfully submitted,
Frank Reeves and David Maddox
© 2004 The Downtown Presbyterian Church All Rights Reserved