Bonus money from Stake for Scouting

As Ward Financial Clerk, the Bishop says that in an upcoming Stake allowance to my ward, we will receive a few hundred extra dollars to help the ward pay for Scouting badges etc. for the unusually large scouting group our ward has.
The question I have is what account to place this money. Normally scouting expenses come from the Other (Scouting) account. So should we write a check from Some Budget account to Other, or leave in Budget. I'm thinking the Other account is the best place for 2 reasons. 1) That is what it is intended for (Scouting). 2) If it is not fully used by year end , we will lose it back to stake, but the need will still be there. Or is this a proper bonus from the Stake in the first place. Not sure.:rolleyes: But sure love this new calling! Any thoughts out there?

blairjames wrote:As Ward Financial Clerk, the Bishop says that in an upcoming Stake allowance to my ward, we will receive a few hundred extra dollars to help the ward pay for Scouting badges etc. for the unusually large scouting group our ward has.
The question I have is what account to place this money. Normally scouting expenses come from the Other (Scouting) account. So should we write a check from Some Budget account to Other, or leave in Budget. I'm thinking the Other account is the best place for 2 reasons. 1) That is what it is intended for (Scouting). 2) If it is not fully used by year end , we will lose it back to stake, but the need will still be there. Or is this a proper bonus from the Stake in the first place. Not sure.:rolleyes: But sure love this new calling! Any thoughts out there?

My understanding is that Other is not to be used as the principal account to fund scouting. The principal funding for scouting should come from Budget.

The exceptional expenses I know about are for a single camp per youth per year, and possibly equipment. Even then, every effort should be made to fund those expenses directly from Budget first. If Budget funds are insufficient, scouts are to earn their own way, and if that is still insufficient then there can be a fundraiser. Only those two sources of funds would go through the Other account. The Other account is certainly not to be used for ordinary scouting expenses.

blairjames wrote:As Ward Financial Clerk, the Bishop says that in an upcoming Stake allowance to my ward, we will receive a few hundred extra dollars to help the ward pay for Scouting badges etc. for the unusually large scouting group our ward has.
The question I have is what account to place this money[?]

You nearly answered your own question when you used the words allowance. It is a budget allowance. Therefore the funds go into a budget category. The two auxiliaries that have scouting expenses are Primary and Young Men. I suspect that you will have to ask what portion is for 11-year-old Primary Scouts and what is for the 12-18 year-old Young Men Scouts (Aaronic Priesthood). Some wards create a budget subcategory within Primary for scouting and the same in Young Men. You could also have just a Scouting budget category for the ward. That is entirely up to your bishop. But in any case the funds are budget funds.

blairjames wrote:Normally scouting expenses come from the Other (Scouting) account.

Normally scouting expenses come from the ward budget. The exception is when there are insufficient funds necessary to cover the costs of a one time youth camp for each youth desiring to attend a camp or equipment for such a camp.

You may want to review the on-line training for Understanding and Using the "Other" Category and Handling Church Expenses. The LDSTech Wiki also has information on the budget allowance, budget allowance accounting, and the Other category.

blairjames wrote:So should we write a check from Some Budget account to Other, or leave in Budget.

Leave it in budget but allocate it to the appropriate account from which scouting expenses are paid. If you have been paying for scouting activities and expenses from the Other category you definitely need to get into the practice of using the proper procedures described in the on-line training and in the Wiki.

blairjames wrote:If it is not fully used by year end , we will lose it back to stake, but the need will still be there.

The stake can sweep back the funds at the end of year; or they can carryover the funds to the next year at their discretion. That depends on how your stake handles year end budget excesses and deficits. But transferring the funds into the Other account is not appropriate. The reason why is explained in the online training mentioned above and the Wiki article.

blairjames wrote:As Ward Financial Clerk, the Bishop says that in an upcoming Stake allowance to my ward, we will receive a few hundred extra dollars to help the ward pay for Scouting badges etc. for the unusually large scouting group our ward has.

In addition to the helpful comments so far, I would add that it is importatnt to understand what it means to say "in an allowance ... we will receive ...". It sounds like you are expecting to receive a check. But if we are talking about an actual budget allowance, I see no reason why you would receive any check.

I am a stake financial clerk, and our stake has done this on occasion. When we do, we simply adjust the budget allocation to the ward and let them know. All Budget checks are automatically reimbursed, but wards and the stake track those expenses against the Budget Allowance, which is administered at the stake level and subdivided to the wards. The stake doesn't send a check to each ward for the budget allowance throughout the year, so there would be no reason to do it for this purpose, either.

These have been helpful thoughts, I agree. Didn't mean to imply that we receive a check for anything from the Stake. Actually all I get is a piece of paper from the Stake saying our allowance for the Qtr. is X dollars for budget.
The only difference this time (I now have) is that the paper says that our ward has been allowed Z more dollars to help pay for scouting badges. In my small mind I thought since Z is earmarked for a specific purpose, the other account would be appropriate. But I will review the training and your advice, and will consult the Bishop as to the budget account he wants to track it in. Thanks for the help:)

blairjames wrote:In my small mind I thought...

There are no small minds here - just people helping people.