Budget Allocation disbursement methods

I would be interested in knowing how many of the stakes
are disbursing Budget allocations to the wards using the
percent transfer method verses issuing checks.

In my Stake the Stake President sets the Stake to receive
100% of each ward's allocation, and then gives the ward an
specific amount via check once they get the most recent
Quarterly Reports submitted.

In my area it seems that many Stake Presidents do it this
way rather than using percentage method where a portion
of the allocation is automatically deposited into the ward's
bank account. Even the ones that do that, sometimes manipulate
each percentage so a specific amount is deposited. For example:

SP: "I want the 1st Ward to get to an allocation of $400 this quarter"

Clerk: "Okay, then that means I need to set the percentage to 43%,
and it will give them an allocation of $402.45"

I wonder why the percentage method is the only option, and why a
Stake President can't just put in a flat amount ? And if that option
was added, would it make any difference ? Also, if there were an
option to place a hold on a budget allocations being deposited until
quarterly reports are received, would Stake Presidents be more
likely to move away from paper checks ?

Unless someone from Church HQ is willing to share their information, can the forum
do a simple poll that asks the forum members if their stake:
1) Distributes Budget Allocations by Check ?
2) Distributes Budget Allocations by Percentage ?
3) Distributes Budget Allocations by Percentage to reach a specific amount
(i.e. playing with the percentage until it comes close to an amount like $400) ?

Boy, talk about micro management!!!!!!!!!

My stake Distributes by percentage.

Under normal situations, I think by percentage is preferable. But if there has recently been a major boundary re-alignment, I can see why they would prefer a manual method until things settle down.

Most anything else I can think of could be done with percentages or with supplemental checks in addition to a basic percentage.

Gary_Miller wrote:Boy, talk about micro management!!!!!!!!!

My stake Distributes by percentage.

Percentages here too. In our previous stake (our ward was moved from one stake to a neighboring stake a few years ago) they also did it by percentages even before CUBS was released. I expect they still do.

My current stake issues a check. My past two stakes used the percentage. I think issuing a check puts a great deal of unnecessary work on the stake clerks.

My stake does it by percentage.

We use percentage unless there is a boundary change, then we adjust percentage or pull it all back and write checks for the affected units.

One reason a stake might not wish to use a percentage is because every ward sees what the percentages are. If the stake is not sharing equally, they have to deal with that. Of course, wards can also compare notes when they receive their checks.

Percentages are easier to manage and seem to provide more equality to me. If there is a need for a special allocation, we cut a check on top of the regular percentage.

lajackson wrote:One reason a stake might not wish to use a percentage is because every ward sees what the percentages are. If the stake is not sharing equally, they have to deal with that.

The whole idea of the budget allowance is that funds may not necessarily be distributed equally. For example a ward that has more senior citizens may not need as much money as a ward that has allot of youth. From the very beginning this was one of the principles in distributing funds.

lajackson wrote:We use percentage unless there is a boundary change, then we adjust percentage or pull it all back and write checks for the affected units.

One reason a stake might not wish to use a percentage is because every ward sees what the percentages are. If the stake is not sharing equally, they have to deal with that. Of course, wards can also compare notes when they receive their checks.

The ward can see the percentages the ward took out from their own allocation, not anyone else's. Since the stele can set each ward separately, they'd still have to compare notes to learn about any inequality.

allenjpl wrote:The ward can see the percentages the ward took out from their own allocation, not anyone else's. Since the stele can set each ward separately, they'd still have to compare notes to learn about any inequality.

Well, if the ward can see the percentage, it seems to me to it might invite comparison on if the stake it taking too much. If the ward just gets a check, it's less visible. That's not to say it can't be calculated - it's just less visible.

A percentage is also much easier to compare between wards. An amount would have to compensate for a number of factors to decide if it was equal or not.

russellhltn wrote:Well, if the ward can see the percentage, it seems to me to it might invite comparison on if the stake it taking too much. If the ward just gets a check, it's less visible. That's not to say it can't be calculated - it's just less visible.

A percentage is also much easier to compare between wards. An amount would have to compensate for a number of factors to decide if it was equal or not.

It's less visible only if the ward doesn't read their messages. A month before the new quarter begins, the wards get a message showing them what their budget allocation is, how much/what percentage the stake is withholding from each category, and the amount that they will receive. Even if the stake takes all of it and sends them a check, the ward still knows exactly how much their ward has contributed to the stake's budget.

atticusewig wrote:I wonder why the percentage method is the only option, and why a Stake President can't just put in a flat amount ? And if that option was added, would it make any difference ? Also, if there were an option to place a hold on a budget allocations being deposited until quarterly reports are received, would Stake Presidents be more likely to move away from paper checks ?

My stake uses percentages, which is the same for each ward. The formula already accounts for youth, Activity Days/Cub Scouts, and YSA. My stake president sees no need for further tinkering. We haven't changed the percentage at all since CUBS came out. The wards know what is coming (based on their quarterly reports). It's simple and fair. If we had a boundary change (we haven't had one since CUBS came out) we would have to make adjustments for one or two quarters, but we would probably do that manually by checks.

Having an option for a flat amount may seem simple, but it would actually add complexity. What happens if the total of the flat amounts exceeds the total allocation, what happens? And it may well require tweaking each quarter.

And the other virtue of using percentages is that if a ward fails to submit their quarterly report, they get hit hard by having zero budget allocation for the next quarter. That's a big incentive to get your report submitted!

My stake has adopted a use it or loose it policy when it comes to budget allocations.

When CUBS was first implemented, my stake president wanted to fully fund wards - especially youth programs. It was decided to take 25% of the sacrament meeting funds from each unit for the stake. This kept extra funds in units with higher youth populations.

Several of our wards are not fully using their funds, so those units now have 50% of the sacrament meeting funds skimmed off by the stake. As those units spend their surplus, we intend to restore funding.

I believe it's important to use the percentage allocations. It's impossible to manualy keep up with shifting populations. The percentage allocations rewards the units who are suceeding in putting bodies in seats. Active participation is the goal.

daveywest wrote:My stake has adopted a use it or loose it policy when it comes to budget allocations.

We usually let them keep it if the amount is not excessive. Our challenge is the ward that adopted a "use it and don't worry about the allocation" policy. That took some adjustments and undoing.

I should probally clarify. When I say, "loose it," I mean loose future deposits. In my stake, units that build up a reserve of unspent budget funds will receive reduced allocations until they begin spending at acceptable levels. I've referred more than one bishop to the parable of the talents, and encouraged them to use the funds provided to bless the lives of the members.

While we haven't set hard and fast rules, a unit that has a budget reserve exceeding the allocations from the prior two quarters gets some additional attention. I've seen attendance levels drop in units that aren't using their budget funds. It's amazing how important ward activities are to sacrament meeting attendance.

Looks like I am in the minority here. In our stake we use checks. At the end of each year, we estimate the total amount of money coming into the stake the next year (i.e., the sum of the estimated ward allocations), determine how much money the stake needs to survive, and then allocate the rest among the wards using the basic allocation formulas, with some tweaking to take into account equities not reflected in the formulas. The stake absorbs the difference between the estimates and actuals.

The virtues:

- Wards know EXACTLY how much budget they will receive in the coming year.
- Wards do not have to take time away from more important things to fuss with projections, and the problems that arise when they are wrong.
- Wards do not have to retool their budgets each quarter.

It takes very little time for the stake to administer this. We write a handful of checks 3x a year (we pay 2Q and 3Q together); not that big of a deal. We never have to tinker with allocation percentages to arrive at equitable results for the units in our stake.

In my view - based on 7 years of experience at the stake level - this system is far superior to the default system. All the wards strongly support this method as well.

Others on this board feel equally as strong the other way. I don't see where they are coming from though.

lajackson wrote:

daveywest wrote:My stake has adopted a use it or loose it policy when it comes to budget allocations.

We usually let them keep it if the amount is not excessive. Our challenge is the ward that adopted a "use it and don't worry about the allocation" policy. That took some adjustments and undoing.

We are on the check system (see above). Our presidency is sensitive about wards saving up to fund activities that really are beyond the scope of acceptable church activities. To avoid this, we allow wards to roll over $1,000 of budget funds from one year to the next. We recapture the rest by reducing their next budget check.

mlh78 wrote:In my view - based on 7 years of experience at the stake level - this system is far superior to the default system. All the wards strongly support this method as well.

Others on this board feel equally as strong the other way. I don't see where they are coming from though.

It's great that the system allows the flexibility for your stake to administer the budget allocation this way. But to help you understand where we "are coming from," I offer the following:

The way I see it, your system has one virtue -- the wards know exactly what their budget will be. The other two "virtues" you mentioned are simply natural consequences of that one virtue. But regardless of how you count the virtues, here are the virtues of our system (we set the percentages once when CUBS came out and haven't touched them since):

• Far simpler administration at the stake level -- no calculations are necessary, and no checks to write and deliver. Writing an extra 30 checks or so per year is not the worst thing in the world, but it's hardly a trivial cost in time and effort.
• Funds arrive at the ward level as soon as possible -- no waiting for the stake to do calculations, cut, and deliver checks.
• Each ward's budget allocation is reliably related to their activity levels. I know that your stake does this on an annual basis, but using the default allocation method makes adjustments based on activity levels more responsive -- changes in activity level have effects within about 3 months, instead of in 12-15 months.
• A specific case of the previous point is that a ward that fails to submit its quarterly report will feel significant pain very promptly.

I guess I don't see the burden on wards to make projections to be significant at all. At least in our stake, most of the wards are fairly stable in their size and activity levels. Even the one ward that is growing grows at a fairly constant rate. So the projections are easy to make and fairly accurate.

But in any case, I'm certainly not trying to argue that anyone should adopt a particular system. Each stake should do what works well for them. I just wanted to provide some details as to why we like our system.