Budget Balance and Carryover

Just a word of warning to you all. The Budget Balance listed on the Budget tab of LCR Finance is based upon the annual budget amount that was estimated at the beginning of the year. In my case, I had overestimated my 2019 budget allocations, so the amount shown is $538 more than my actual budget balance, which will carry over to 2020.

You need to look at the Budget balance on the Income and Expense Summary to know exactly how much will be carried over to the next year. And of course, that amount can change right up through New Year's Eve, since IROP and EFT expenses can always surprise you.

Is there any way we can re-allocate the organization's budget allocation online through LCR or does this still need to be done on MLS? If in MLS, is there a way to access MLS through our home computer or do we need to physically log in at the church building? We have a category called "light the world" fund that was not budgeted and I would like to allocate the remaining budget balance to that budget category but cannot do it on LCR.

Is it good practice to allocate all the carryover into a budget category each year or only budget what you are expecting from the quarterly income based on prior history? For example, the budget income each year is around $4000 and I assign each of the unit budgets according to this $4000 so that we do not allocate more than what we are expecting. However, the $1000 carried over from previous year is unallocated but now I need to allocate that to one of our other category.

cchang wrote:If in MLS, is there a way to access MLS through our home computer or do we need to physically log in at the church building?

You have to be physically there in front of the computer.

cchang wrote:We have a category called "light the world" fund that was not budgeted and I would like to allocate the remaining budget balance to that budget category but cannot do it on LCR.

Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

drepouille wrote:Just a word of warning to you all. The Budget Balance listed on the Budget tab of LCR Finance is based upon the annual budget amount that was estimated at the beginning of the year. In my case, I had overestimated my 2019 budget allocations, so the amount shown is $538 more than my actual budget balance, which will carry over to 2020.

You need to look at the Budget balance on the Income and Expense Summary to know exactly how much will be carried over to the next year. And of course, that amount can change right up through New Year's Eve, since IROP and EFT expenses can always surprise you.

Great info. This is helpful.

cchang wrote:Is there any way we can re-allocate the organization's budget allocation online through LCR or does this still need to be done on MLS? If in MLS, is there a way to access MLS through our home computer or do we need to physically log in at the church building? We have a category called "light the world" fund that was not budgeted and I would like to allocate the remaining budget balance to that budget category but cannot do it on LCR.

Is it good practice to allocate all the carryover into a budget category each year or only budget what you are expecting from the quarterly income based on prior history? For example, the budget income each year is around $4000 and I assign each of the unit budgets according to this $4000 so that we do not allocate more than what we are expecting. However, the $1000 carried over from previous year is unallocated but now I need to allocate that to one of our other category.

We treat the carry over as income along with an estimate of what we think the church/stake will budget for us. Then we do a new allocation to budget categories based on rollover + estimated allocation from the stake for the year.

chriswoodut wrote:

drepouille wrote:
We treat the carry over as income along with an estimate of what we think the church/stake will budget for us. Then we do a new allocation to budget categories based on rollover + estimated allocation from the stake for the year.

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Do you also send an email out to the organization's presidencies to request if there are any unique circumstances they are looking to request a bigger budget this year compared to last year or do you just go with past history?

cchang wrote:Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

russellhltn wrote:Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

russellhltn has already answered this particular question in his post above!

cchang wrote:

chriswoodut wrote:

drepouille wrote:
We treat the carry over as income along with an estimate of what we think the church/stake will budget for us. Then we do a new allocation to budget categories based on rollover + estimated allocation from the stake for the year.

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Do you also send an email out to the organization's presidencies to request if there are any unique circumstances they are looking to request a bigger budget this year compared to last year or do you just go with past history?

There's a thread here with some good discussion about the new youth program and budgeting. viewtopic.php?f=46&t=35733

Honestly, I think this is one area we are still getting better at after a couple years of doing it. Our Bishop has each organization do a bottom up budget.

As discussed in the thread above, you can estimate how much church/stake are allocating to you per youth. We actually allocate a little higher than that and somehow make it work. Every ward/branch is different.

Our YW president will do a ground up budget that looks something like:
YW Camp:
- facility cost = $x
- Food = $x
- Crafts = $x
- T-shirts = $x
- Misc = $x
Total Camp budget

Youg women regular budget for weekly activities:
YW Class 1 - $x
YW Class 2 - $x
YW Class 3 - $x
YW Combined Activities - $x

If the desired budget is different than the Bishop's target, there's a negotiation, discussions for fundraisers, etc.

Each organization does something similar. So, if we have excess budget rolled over, where does it go? The Bishop makes that decision based on what is going on that year. One year, the YW wanted to go to a scout camp that set aside a couple weeks for YW camps. For that year, the Young MEN budgets for camps was reduced so that the YW could go to an organized camp.
This year we have FSY but had planned a trek and stake youth conference. We do not increase everyone's budget if there's a rollover. It's always a ground up creation of the budget that is justifiable for the use of the funds meeting church goals.

Biggles wrote:

cchang wrote:Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

russellhltn wrote:Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

russellhltn has already answered this particular question in his post above!

The ward money that gets carried over should be put into a budget category and was wondering which category it is put in. It doesn't have to be put into a budget category but would you normally put it in? I understand all budgets get zeroed out but what do you do with the carry over ward money?

Keep in mind that the ward gets to carry over whatever the stake allows them to. I have seen cases where the stake asked wards to send some of their end-of-year surplus back to the stake.

I used a spreadsheet that had each of the planned quarters for the next year and included a line for the carryover - these 5 amounts became the proposed total budget for the new year. It showed each organization and their spending against the prior 1 or 2 years. I then proposed new budgets per organization based on historical spending. Each organization should provide a proposed budget for the upcoming year per church policy... I have personally never seen that happen at the ward/branch level in practice in my ~20 years as a ward or branch clerk.

When I was serving as clerk, we would keep about 10% aside in a "contingency" fund that was used to cover budget shortfalls as the year progressed so organizations could plan on their annual budget not changing once it was approved. I would base the annual budget on the 1Q numbers but have found that usually the 1st quarter is always the highest budget quarter. When following quarters were lower, I would reduce the contingency fund accordingly to keep the budget in MLS fully accounted for. Had I not been released as ward clerk recently (I'm still in mourning, LOL), I was going to change and propose using a lower number for this year. Our YW and YM organizations are almost the same size so changing to provide the same amount per youth instead of the same amount per organization is not a problem for us.

cchang wrote:

Biggles wrote:

cchang wrote:Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

russellhltn wrote:Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

russellhltn has already answered this particular question in his post above!

The ward money that gets carried over should be put into a budget category and was wondering which category it is put in. It doesn't have to be put into a budget category but would you normally put it in? I understand all budgets get zeroed out but what do you do with the carry over ward money?

I don't think you have to allocate 100% of the income. If you want to allocate it somewhere because you don't have a use for it right now you could put it in a budget category only the clerks use because they'll know it isn't theirs. You can adjust the budget later if you need to and move it.

davesudweeks wrote:Keep in mind that the ward gets to carry over whatever the stake allows them to. I have seen cases where the stake asked wards to send some of their end-of-year surplus back to the stake.

I used a spreadsheet that had each of the planned quarters for the next year and included a line for the carryover - these 5 amounts became the proposed total budget for the new year. It showed each organization and their spending against the prior 1 or 2 years. I then proposed new budgets per organization based on historical spending.

I do something similar. I build a spreadsheet with previous years' budgets and what was actual spent each year. I do a rough proposal to get things rolling.

"Budget" is confusing because they're two aspects of it. There's "Budget (funds)" which is the money that the ward gets from SLC each quarter based on attendance records after the stake has taken their cut. Then there's "Budget (plan)" which is how the ward plans to spend the money.

The Budget (plan) is just that - a plan for the year. Once the year ends, it's over, done. There is nothing left. There is no carryover. It's not real money because it was just a plan. This is typically what is assigned to various groups.

Budget (funds) do carry over. Some units do move the funds from the original source (allocation?) to various groups. I'm not sure if it stays there but in the past, it goes back to the master group.

Next year is a new year with a new plan. I think the only carryover in the budget is the ward itself. (Of course, "other" and "missionary" carry over as-is).

davesudweeks wrote:Keep in mind that the ward gets to carry over whatever the stake allows them to. I have seen cases where the stake asked wards to send some of their end-of-year surplus back to the stake.

Yes, this is my concern too. I have seen it one year where the stake asked for the ward's surpluses be contributed to a stake camp out.

russellhltn wrote:"Budget" is confusing because they're two aspects of it. There's "Budget (funds)" which is the money that the ward gets from SLC each quarter based on attendance records after the stake has taken their cut. Then there's "Budget (plan)" which is how the ward plans to spend the money.

The Budget (plan) is just that - a plan for the year. Once the year ends, it's over, done. There is nothing left. There is no carryover. It's not real money because it was just a plan. This is typically what is assigned to various groups.

Budget (funds) do carry over. Some units do move the funds from the original source (allocation?) to various groups. I'm not sure if it stays there but in the past, it goes back to the master group.

Next year is a new year with a new plan. I think the only carryover in the budget is the ward itself. (Of course, "other" and "missionary" carry over as-is).

Outstanding points!

On one hand, Handbook 1, section 14.7.2.2 directs that unneeded ward funds are returned to the stake, but wards may retain some of those funds. On the other hand, wards cannot start the year with a zero balance, because the first budget allocation is not deposited until mid-January.

See the Help Center for information about preparing your budget.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/hel ... ce/budgets

drepouille wrote:On one hand, Handbook 1, section 14.7.2.2 directs that unneeded ward funds are returned to the stake, but wards may retain some of those funds. On the other hand, wards cannot start the year with a zero balance, because the first budget allocation is not deposited until mid-January.

See the Help Center for information about preparing your budget.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/hel ... ce/budgets

In the past, our stake has typically allowed wards to carry over about 1 quarter of allocations. If there is anything more than that, they consider it "unneeded excess" and ask the wards to return the extra amount to the stake. I'm not saying our stake won't change in the future and I'm not saying other stakes must/should do the same.

In the 3 stakes I've been in with callings as a clerk/secretary I don't think we've ever been asked to send funds back to the stake. Interesting. With it being Dec 30, I would hope if a stake is planning on asking for anything back that they have communicated that long before wards start doing their budgets.

chriswoodut wrote:In the 3 stakes I've been in with callings as a clerk/secretary I don't think we've ever been asked to send funds back to the stake. Interesting. With it being Dec 30, I would hope if a stake is planning on asking for anything back that they have communicated that long before wards start doing their budgets.

It has only happened once when I was clerk and was the result of a new bishop who kept pressure on all the organizations to not spend their budget. We ended up with over half our budget unspent at the end of the year. The stake president taught him a lesson by making us give almost all of it back to the stake...

We received our Q1 2020 budget allowance. It is $12 per attendee. There is a "Parent Unit Est. Percentage" of 54% which means we only get $6.48 per attendee. Can someone explain that? Here is the footnote reference, *** If you have questions concerning these percentages, please contact your Parent Unit President.

smithsor wrote:We received our Q1 2020 budget allowance. It is $12 per attendee. There is a "Parent Unit Est. Percentage" of 54% which means we only get $6.48 per attendee. Can someone explain that? Here is the footnote reference, *** If you have questions concerning these percentages, please contact your Parent Unit President.

For most, "parent unit" is the stake. (for branches in a mission, it would be the mission).

While the allowance is based on the ward's attendance, the stake sets how much they get to fund the stake programs. So, in your case, the stake is taking 46% for it's budget. Any questions about that should be directed to the stake president.

chriswoodut wrote:In the 3 stakes I've been in with callings as a clerk/secretary I don't think we've ever been asked to send funds back to the stake. Interesting. With it being Dec 30, I would hope if a stake is planning on asking for anything back that they have communicated that long before wards start doing their budgets.

Our ward has only been asked to return unneeded budget funds to the stake once since the stake was created in 1999. Interestingly, that was about four months before our ward was moved to another stake. Coincidence?

russellhltn wrote:So, in your case, the stake is taking 54% for it's budget. Any questions about that should be directed to the stake president.

Actually that percentage is used to calculate the amount that is going to be passed through to the unit. In this case the unit is getting 54% of the allocation and the stake is keeping 46%.

jdlessley wrote:Actually that percentage is used to calculate the amount that is going to be passed through to the unit. In this case the unit is getting 54% of the allocation and the stake is keeping 46%.

I stand corrected. I understood it correctly, but that's not what came out of my fingers.

I fixed my post.