New Ward Budget Calculations

I am a clerk for a newly created ward. I know that the church has a formula that they use to calculate the money they send for the budget. I know it is based off of the quarterly report. We just finished our first quarterly report this month. I am trying to estimate what how much money we will receive based off of the numbers, so that we can plan our budget. If anyone can help me find the formula I would greatly appreciate it.

I think you're best off talking with the stake clerk for a couple of reasons:

Funding is based on quarterly reports. 3Q allocation is based on the numbers from 1Q reports. When you are first created, there will be a time lag before you get funding from CHQ. The stake will most likely take some money from the ward you were split off from to carry you over until you're on your own.

Secondly, while there is a set formula, it's given to the stake. The stake then decides how much to keep for the stake-level programs before forwarding the remainder to you.

Bottom line: no one here can tell you how much your ward will get - it's all dependent on your stake.

As russellHltn noted, your best source of information for your first quarterly allocation. and even the second quarterly allocation, will be from the stake clerk. Once your ward has been around for at least two quarters you can compute the estimated quarterly allocation. The attendance area amounts are supplied in the Quarterly Budget Allowance reports and Estimated Quarterly Budget Allowance reports you will begin to receive later on.

See Budget allowance for an explanation. The actual attendance figure amounts are dependent on your area. In the U.S. the attendance figure amounts are: General budget (sacrament meeting attendance) = $12, Young Men = $12.5, Young Women = $12.5, Primary* = $6.25, and Young Single Adults** = $6.25. As explained in the Budget allowance article the attendance figures come from the quarterly report for the quarter two quarters previous. For example, the first quarter 2013 budget is calculated from the third quarter 2012 report. These allowance amounts are multiplied by the allocation percentage provided by your stake to determine the allocation of the allowance the unit will receive. Contact you stake clerk or stake finance clerk for the the allocation percentages. The allocation percentages will also be on the Quarterly Budget Allowance report once you start receiving it. The formula for each of the five attendance areas is attendance_figure X attendance_figure_amount X allocation_percentage = attendance_area_allocation. Add the five attendance_area_allocation amounts together for the total budget allocation for the quarter.

The sacrament meeting attendance, young men, and young women attendance figures are straight from the quarterly report. *The Primary attendance figure is calculated by multiplying the number of children (ages 8 to 11) from membership records by the percent of Primary attendance from line 21 of the Quarterly Report. **The Young Single Adult attendance figure is calculated by multiplying the number of single adults (ages 18 to 30) from membership records by the percent of sacrament meeting attendance from line 2 of the Quarterly Report.

Guys, I thought, as you posted above, that current budget is based on attendance two quarters ago. But my stake clerk told me today that that had changed to 1 quarter ago, i.e. 2013Q1 dollars come from 2012Q4 attendance. Is he correct? Has anyone else heard of this changing?
Thanks.

hansg wrote:2013Q1 dollars come from 2012Q4 attendance.

I'd go back to when you turn in your monthly report and compare that with when you get notification of the next quarter's funding. I think you'd need a time machine.

hansg wrote:Guys, I thought, as you posted above, that current budget is based on attendance two quarters ago. But my stake clerk told me today that that had changed to 1 quarter ago, i.e. 2013Q1 dollars come from 2012Q4 attendance. Is he correct? Has anyone else heard of this changing?

That couldn't possibly correct. Remember that the 2012Q4 attendance was not known until well into January; quarterly reports are due on January 15, and could well arrive quite a bit later. But the 2013Q1 budget allocations arrived well before that date. The ineluctable arithmetic of the calendar clearly disproves that rumor.

Well. My next conversation with him is going to be fun. . . I shall use words like time machine and ineluctable, and he will likely scramble for a dictionary, like I did. . .

I see that the date of our unit's 2013Q1 "Quarterly Budget Allowance" notification is 10 Jan 2013. And our quarterly reports are perpetually late, making the ineluctable arithmetic even more, uh, ineluctable. . .

hansg wrote:Guys, I thought, as you posted above, that current budget is based on attendance two quarters ago. But my stake clerk told me today that that had changed to 1 quarter ago, i.e.

Its base on two quarters for instance Q4 2012 Budget Allowance given in September is from the June 30 2012, Q2 Quarterly Report figures. It looks as if its one quarter because the allowance is given at the beginning of the quarter and the quarterly report is from the end of the quarter, so you only have three months before the allowance based on two quarters ago figures is sent out.

**The Young Single Adult attendance figure is calculated by multiplying the number of single adults (ages 18 to 30) from membership records by the percent of sacrament meeting attendance from line 2 of the Quarterly Report.

Does anyone know if this has changed? The quarterly reports ask the melchizedek priesthood and the Relief Society to report on actual attendance of YSAs at their meetings. Perhaps they now use those actual reported attendance figures instead of just doing the above-mentioned calculation?

If there has been a change in the way the number is calculated, we have not been told. You do raise a good question, however.

An ambitious stake clerk could look at the budget allowance report and figure it out, though. Or even a ward clerk (also ambitious, of course).

Based on my Quarterly Budget Allowance Report I reviewed today, it does run 2 quarters behind. My Q3 allowance is based on our Q1 reported figures. It's also interesting to be able to see the amounts that the stake allocates to the wards for each factor.

jsorens6 wrote:Based on my Quarterly Budget Allowance Report I reviewed today, it does run 2 quarters behind. My Q3 allowance is based on our Q1 reported figures. It's also interesting to be able to see the amounts that the stake allocates to the wards for each factor.

I suspect most stake presidents are not even aware of those allocation percentages. My stake president want not aware of them until I raised the issue in a presidency meeting. After some discussion, the presidency told me to make a few adjustments.

jsorens6 wrote:It's also interesting to be able to see the amounts that the stake allocates to the wards for each factor.

drepouille wrote:I suspect most stake presidents are not even aware of those allocation percentages.

In a former life when my responsibilities included stake finances, we regularly discussed them in presidency meeting. We found it easier to give the wards 100% of the extra allocations, and adjust the percentage on just the general allocation to provide for the stake budget. We also gave the branches more of their general allocation than we gave the wards.

But each stake presidency needs to make those decisions that best serve the stake and all of its wards and branches. There are many ways to do it.

drepouille wrote:I suspect most stake presidents are not even aware of those allocation percentages.

Or at least not aware it's under their control. When called to the position, they have bigger things to deal with. So they let that "run as it's always run". At least until something comes up that causes them to re-think the situation.

russellhltn wrote:. . . they have bigger things to deal with. So they let that "run as it's always run".

It was that way the first time around. But the second time around, we were a new stake. In the beginning, we really had to work hard to get it to run at all. Writing transfer checks, regular changes to the percentages, remembering to make the changes to the percentages each quarter until everything was up and running smoothly.

We set a good plan to begin with. But we had to make sure we remembered to make all of the changes along the way for the first several quarters until things stabilized and balanced.