Member wants to donate flat screens...

A member of my ward wants to donate flat screens for use throughout the building. Ideally they would be wall mounted in many of the classrooms. I've heard of this happening in some buildings but was looking for the official church policy on this along with forum member opinions, suggestions, connectivity thoughts, etc.

Thank you!

The only thing I can find is Handbook 1 14.4.8 which discourages donations in-kind. I know there is a specific ban on donations of administrative computers and Emergency Communication Equipment, but I don't know of one that would cover AV equipment.

Personally, it feels wrong, but I can't a policy to prohibit it.

I would think you would have to work with the FMG on this matter to see if they would even want to do this.

People wanting to do these type of things always have the best interest however after the donation there would be additional cost such as maintenance, security, and replacement that the church may not want to deal with.

russellhltn wrote:Personally, it feels wrong, but I can't a policy to prohibit it.

How about The Budget Allowance, which states that:

Stake and ward budget funds should be used to pay for all activities, programs, manuals, and supplies. Members should not pay fees to participate. Nor should they provide materials, supplies, rental or admission fees, or long-distance transportation at their own expense.

This donation seems like providing materials/supplies at their own expense.

aebrown wrote:This donation seems like providing materials/supplies at their own expense.

It's not an activity budget, but it may be as close as we get. Why it feels wrong to me is because it would be a return to the old ways with locally-raised budgets where units located in "rich" areas would become the "haves" and the others become the "have nots".

russellhltn wrote:

aebrown wrote:This donation seems like providing materials/supplies at their own expense.

It's not an activity budget, but it may be as close as we get. Why it feels wrong to me is because it would be a return to the old ways with locally-raised budgets where units located in "rich" areas would become the "haves" and the others become the "have nots".

I don't see why it's relevant that it's not an activity budget. What I quoted was from the Budget Allowance section, not the Activities section. It said that the Budget Allowance pays for "all activities, programs, manuals, and supplies." If it were referring only to activities, those last three items would not need to be in that sentence. So clearly "supplies" refers to more than just supplies related to activities.

So I think the Budget Allowance policies do apply here, and your point about differences in funding levels in areas with different economic status is a good one -- one of the goals of the Budget Allowance program was to equalize funding for all units. That applies not only to activities but to every expenditure of every unit.

russellhltn wrote:

aebrown wrote:This donation seems like providing materials/supplies at their own expense.

It's not an activity budget, but it may be as close as we get. Why it feels wrong to me is because it would be a return to the old ways with locally-raised budgets where units located in "rich" areas would become the "haves" and the others become the "have nots".

I agree wholeheartedly. Which is why I pushed, in my stake, to get a Single Large Flatscreen in each material center, and a small LCD for EACH occupying ward in a meetinghouse in 2013 (the year that Come Follow Me came out). We pushed hard after a 2011 stake center was built and came pre-loaded with all the nice goodies. If you see the standard spec sheet for libraries in the church, you'll see it is supposed to have equipment that I know and can testify is not there.

It wasn't until the Come, Follow Me curriculum announcement was official at the end of last year (2012) that our FMG was finally on board (I'd been following closely a couple of bogs/facebook groups and knew CFM was coming very quickly). Work within the system, and IF and only IF your FMG decides it is a good idea it'll get in the budget for next year. Then, and this is the key, Get the SP to make them purchase in the first week of the budget cycle, like Jan 3, 2014 - because they'll be out of money and crying poor by March.

The issue with sticking to the guidelines as a rigid rule is that something like the change in missionary age comes along and the FMG budgets (we're told) were vastly reduced to accommodate for the change. That leaves us unable to fund an improvement through the Correct path. I'd bet, that if you put it out in 'common consent' of the members of the church, we'd vote to have new TV's in our meetinghouses and equipment to provide the centralized program and choose to donate more money to the missionary fund (increase the $400 to $450) or whatever else... maybe we could reduce the amount of tithing funds used to offset the education of BYU Students and buy projectors for our seminary rooms, etc... I get and approve explicitly why the budget funding is the way it is, but if money can be withdrawn from the Budget that is reserved to do the other normal things, it leaves me to wonder if it isn't all that unfair to buy a TV for every meetinghouse in the area... maybe we could put together a kickstarter campaign.

Meetinghouses and all furnishings and equipment therein are the property of the Presiding Bishop of the Church. The Presiding Bishopric establishes policy relative to meetinghouse construction and operations, including authorized quality and quantity of equipment. Consistency in the quality and quantity of equipement is important so that equipment is compatible with systems authorized for and installed in meetinghouses, technical support and warranties are available from Church headquarters, and there can be proper planning for future replacement costs.

Funds donated to the Church, except for approved fund raisers for youth camps or supplies, do not carry with them any stipulation as to where the funds should be spent. The Council on the Disposition of Tithes determines for what purpose donated funds are used. It is therefore inappropriate for local leaders to solicit donations to be used for equipment purchases or accept the donation of equipment, as they have no authority to determine where those donations to the Church should be used.

It is also inappropriate to use local unit budget funds to purchase, for use in a meetinghouse, audio/visual or other equipment, which has not been approved by the Presiding Bishopric. In June 2012, the following notice was sent to Church project and facilities managers: "Stake and ward leaders requesting (unauthorized A/V or other technology) items from Facilities Managers should be advised that they are NOT allowed until direction is received from the Presiding Bishopric. They should be encouraged not to use donated or local unit budget funds to install these items on their own. Meetinghouses are the property of the Presiding Bishop of the Church, and local leaders and Church employees should not make any changes to Presiding Bishopric approved standards without permission to do so."

Discussions are being conducted by departments and committees under the direction of the Presiding Bishopric, and as the Bishopric makes decisions regarding A/V and other technological equipment local leaders and Church employees will be so advised.

Design and Facilities Support Section
Architecture, Engineering and Construction Division
Meetinghouse Facilities Department

mprusse wrote:A member of my ward wants to donate flat screens for use throughout the building.

This begs the question: Why? Does the building have any flat screen monitors now? If so, does someone think there aren't enough of them? According to this recommended list of library materials you should have at least one 32-inch or 47-inch monitor for the building (depending on the capacity of the building) plus a 26-inch monitor for each unit. If you don't have those already then you can make a good case for the "proper channels" to provide them. Or does this member simply have a surplus of TVs and they're feeling generous? Bottom line, someone thinks that what you have now is not cutting it. So, I ask why.

mprusse wrote:Ideally they would be wall mounted in many of the classrooms.

I don't think this is "ideal" at all. In our building there are about 20 classrooms. I'd rather have portable carts that can take a monitor into any of them.

For anyone who's still struggling to equip their buildings with flat screen monitors, I think you need to cut and paste the post right above this one and use it to make the case that A) your ward isn't allowed to fix this problem on its own so B) you can demand that the FM group act immediately (instead of getting around to it on another year's budget). McCuneLR's statement is rather strong, leaving no "wiggle room". So it clearly points out how the local teachers are at the mercy of a larger system that, at the moment, appears to not be serving everyone's needs as it was designed to do. Can we understand why the local, ward members/leaders are frustrated when it appears that "the proper channels" cannot respond to local needs but forbid the local leaders to do anything about it? (It's difficult for me to appreciate the need for product warrantees when I consider the absolutely ancient TV and VCR we were using in our building up until a few months ago.)

Why? Because as per your calculations: If there are two units in a building, they should have 3 flat screen monitors, right?

At the same time there are 6 youth classes going on that all have "suggested videos" to watch during their lesson times. So leaders are required to bring their own devices from home. And watching a video with a room full of deacons when all you have is an I-Pad is not "ideal" either.

Then you are tying up the three monitors for the youth eliminating anyone from Relief Society, Elders, High Priests or Primary from using them.

At least that is the "why" in our building.

TinMan wrote:Why? Because as per your calculations: If there are two units in a building, they should have 3 flat screen monitors, right?

You make a fair point. But is that the reason (i.e. not enough monitors in the guidelines) why someone in mprusse's ward wants to donate more monitors or have they not even reached the number of monitors in the guidelines yet? And if the guidelines aren't adequate for the needs of the average building then, by all means, let's send a clear message back "through the appropriate channels" to get the guidelines changed! It's not as if the scriptures dictate the size and number of TVs in the building. So I have no problem questioning this particular guideline and suggesting changes if necessary.

Earlier this year, on these very forums, we were arguing about how, according to the policy which was on lds.org at the time, we weren't allowed to have TVs larger than 25 inches. I made a somewhat blunt demand (using the feedback link on the page at lds.org) that the web page be scrapped immediately because it was so out-of-date. I didn't pay close attention to the follow-up but, within a few weeks, I happened to notice the updated page (for which I provided a link in my earlier post) which said that the smallest monitors should be 26 inches and that 47-inch monitors were okay. So please provide feedback (through your ward and stake leaders) if A) You haven't yet received the gear you should have and B) if having that gear still isn't enough. They need to know what's working and what isn't.

Oh, it is working just fine for us, because we had a member get tired of waiting and donated 4 26 inch monitors he found on sale at Costco in February. With the three issued to us by the FM group in July, six months after the new curriculum came out, we now have seven monitors.

I am sure someone will find a link to a thread where we talked about this at the first of the year and went on for about 10 pages.

Something about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing: That is, getting this wonderful new teaching system geared to the media savvy youth tossed out to us and in the library sits standard televisions with VCR's hooked up to them.

I am sure the church will catch up eventually, but in the mean time...

McCuneLR wrote:Discussions are being conducted by departments and committees under the direction of the Presiding Bishopric, and as the Bishopric makes decisions regarding A/V and other technological equipment local leaders and Church employees will be so advised.

I'm curious if this includes the equipment used for the webcasting of Stake Conference to buildings within the stake. I see discussions on these forums about acquiring various types of gear, including multiple cameras, video switchers, character generators (for on-screen text of hymns) and audio mixing equipment. The discussions seem to indicate that there's not really a standard set of equipment and, depending on who's making the decisions, these webcasts can be very simple or very sophisticated productions. And it kinda sounds like people are using Stake budget funds to buy and/or rent this stuff and adding all kinds of broadcast-style enhancements (if they know how to use the gear that makes that stuff happen) which only add to the cost.

I find it a little discouraging to think that you can spend that kind of money just for two stake conference webcasts per year but we're prohibited from buying a couple of extra TV monitors that could be used every week.

Any answers? Anyone?

mrrad wrote:Any answers? Anyone?

The person with answers would be McCuneLR, but he's made just that one appearance.

...or maybe someone who has been involved in making these purchases in their stake could tell us whether money came from budget, from a donor, from the FM Group or some other source (...or maybe they'd rather not say because the statement about A/V purchases was so strong).

mrrad wrote:...or maybe someone who has been involved in making these purchases in their stake could tell us whether money came from budget, from a donor, from the FM Group or some other source (...or maybe they'd rather not say because the statement about A/V purchases was so strong).

There is considerable information on webcasting including information on purchasing equipment on the RKATS site: https://www.lds.org/callings/melchizede ... t?lang=eng

It's pretty clear that most of the equipment is purchased with budget funds. A lot of it can be purchased from store.lds.org. I would assume that any unit following the guidelines and policies outlined there is staying within policy.

As for why several hundred dollars can be spent on webcasting but we aren't authorized to purchase a few flat screen displays--well, that kind of thing seems to be a feature of any large organization from my experience. I'm frequently frustrated at work that is so hard to get a $150 piece of software that will provide productivity gains for years but $400 for plane tickets for a meeting that could probably be done by phone or video conference happens without anyone really thinking about it. Different budgets get different scrutiny independent of the amount of money involved.

In this case, my guess is that policies and guidelines have been worked out for webcast but they're still figuring out what to do about instructional A/V needs.

mrrad wrote:...or maybe someone who has been involved in making these purchases in their stake could tell us whether money came from budget, from a donor, from the FM Group or some other source (...or maybe they'd rather not say because the statement about A/V purchases was so strong).

Just from my observations on this forum, it's quite clear that there have been plenty of purchases using budget funds, a few from the FM group, some from donors (just in this topic alone you can see references to all three options). Since we've seen all three of those options (plus the 4th option -- don't upgrade A/V equipment at all at this point), I don't think anecdotal evidence is all that helpful.

That statement from McCuneLR was certainly very clear, but although a post on this forum is helpful to those of us who happen to read it, it clearly is not a message that got out to all the stake presidents.

mrrad wrote:

McCuneLR wrote:Discussions are being conducted by departments and committees under the direction of the Presiding Bishopric, and as the Bishopric makes decisions regarding A/V and other technological equipment local leaders and Church employees will be so advised.

I'm curious if this includes the equipment used for the webcasting of Stake Conference to buildings within the stake.

McCuneLR's message referenced only "unauthorized A/V or other technology"; for webcasting, we have explicitly been told that stakes are authorized to purchase that equipment (see Purchasing Webcast Products on RKATS). So the way I see it, we have already been advised regarding that particular subset of A/V technology.

I was speaking to my FM yesterday about some of the difficulties surrounding policies that are published out there, I used the computer policy (which states that in the 4th a stake/fm should budget to replace a computer in the 5th year) and the Printer/Copier FAQ also published through the forums, available in RKATS and if you call the printer people in SLC.

The FM told me that these are only guidelines, this is the third unique FM that has told me the same thing. If the FMG is free to ignore/redefine policies published by the Church and act differently, why aren't we able to treat the published information as guidelines and act in the best way we see fit. It always comes down to how the Stake President interprets the information under his stewardship.

Something is going to have to come to a head. Either policy is policy or guidelines are guidelines. The information published in this thread by the FM holds no weight in my book unless it comes out as a policy available in an officially published place (RKATS, OCL) and even then, it appears, that FMG will act as if these are guidelines.

mrrad lists a link that apparently used to say how many TV's were approved for a building... But the page no longer states anything on the subject. Anyone know of an updated policy here?

The portion that used to give guidelines/rules on the number of TVs and the sizes permitted has apparently been replaced by....

See your facilities management representative for a list of approved electronic items such as copiers/printers, keyboards, projectors, cameras, CD players, DVD players, and TVs.

...so this is probably a good step towards allowing wards and stakes to obtain the equipment they think they need rather than impose a single policy church-wide. Now we just need to hope that everyone gets the word on this change and not have situations where someone is still trying to enforce the old standard. As usual, the people in these forums have no idea what each local facilities management group is doing, often including the one under which their own ward/stake operates.

mrrad wrote:...so this is probably a good step towards allowing wards and stakes to obtain the equipment they think they need rather than impose a single policy church-wide.

Or it means the wards are at the mercy of the FM Group.

I'm not a fan of the fact we can't get independently verify what rules the FMG has to follow. There's no check and balance.

russellhltn wrote:Or it means the wards are at the mercy of the FM Group.

I'm not a fan of the fact we can't get independently verify what rules the FMG has to follow. There's no check and balance.

Hopefully it means the wards and stakes will have to stay within the bounds of the funding sources and stop using LUBA to fund facility equipment type items. Thus leaving the funds to be used to for ward operation supplies and activities.

That information was removed from the site, because it only applied to the US and Canada. Outside of the US and Canada, the DTA for that area, and his staff make the decisions about the temporal affairs of the church, including, what AV equipment is standard in the meetinghouse. Frequently these needs are not the same, and so the equipment provided is not the same. In these instances, rather than clarifying things, for everyone, the information became a source of confusion, so it was removed until a better method of distributing the information can be found.

This thread has been informative and helpful to me. I did notice a recent update about purchasing webcast products. the update is 6 March 2015.
https://www.lds.org/help/support/webcas ... s?lang=eng
Also a wonderful page webcasting
https://www.lds.org/callings/melchizede ... t?lang=eng

I notice that the item numbers mentioned in the post are not actually available through store.lds.org.... at least searching for those numbers results in "nothing found".

Let's not divert the thread from it's original topic of member donated TV's.

In one of my ward buildings, some member has replaced the last couple of tube TV's with some used LCD's. As STS, the problems I'm having with this are numerous. I'll list a few:

• Only one has a USB input and it doesn't play many of the MP4's DL'ed from lds.org.
• These are just set on the tall rolling carts the tube TV's previously occupied and are NOT anchored down in any way. I can envision lawsuits flying should one of these come crashing down on some Primary kid.
• Is having these in place going to jeopardize negotiations with my FM folks over acquiring church-issued LCD screens mounted on the proper carts?
• The tube TV's are sitting in the corner of our already small library, but if I have the FM group dispose them, will that further hamper my efforts to get church-issued TV's in there?

There are other issues, but those are the biggest ones. I don't know who the donor was, but I'm not sure having that info would help.

The biggest issue is that once donated, FM marks that as a FLAT screen for that meetinghouse and it starts the 14 year ticker for replacement.

I would keep those tube TV's and lock that flatscreen in a Bishop's office... if you're lucky the FM group hasn't inventoried the flatscreen yet.

They should be encouraged not to use donated or local unit budget funds to install these items on their own.

from another thread https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=20

Seems that the discussion of the FM group having this stewardship is right on.