Fast Offering Expense Limit?

Is there a limit on how much Fast Offering funds can be used to pay for expenses for a member in need? During a recent Stake Finance Meeting a comment was made that any expenses over $5,000 needed the approval from the Stake President. However, I am having a hard time finding that wording in the current General Handbook. Searching through this Forum there seems to have been guidance in prior General Handbooks that required Stake President approval for medical expenses over $5,000. Do those limits/guidelines still exist?

If they do can someone point me to the right section in the General Handbook that covers this topic on limits?

Thanks!

I don't see anything in the current Handbook, but the stake president can impose additional limits.

There are sections of the Handbook that would be good to review, such as 22.6.3.3 "Sustain Life, Not Lifestyle" and 22.6.3.4 "Provide Commodities before Cash" that may be relevant to your situation.

I recall past discussions in this forum regarding medical expenses and if memory serves, there was additional guidance at one time about seeking approval for those when they reached a certain threshold. Is it possible that is what the commend was about in the stake finance meeting?

See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/hel ... g=eng&_r=1

waltbristow wrote:See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/hel ... g=eng&_r=1

I no longer have a calling that grants access to that, but I think it is the info I was remembering...

If the Ward limit is $5,000 and the limit is $10,000 with Stake President approval....
If a check for say $7,000 needs to be written and the Stake President knows about it and approves, what is the process of actually making the payment? I assume the ward makes the $7,000 disbursement but how is the Stake President's approval formally obtained?

how is the Stake President's approval formally obtained?

I believe that there's no official place for this approval online, but that the auditors require a "paper trail". We recently had an audit, and included in the review was an expense that needed the Stake President's approval. Email communication between our unit and the Stake President were sufficient to demonstrate Stake President approval. Even better procedure might be to print out electronic communications like this and attach them to the Expense Report

Excellent advice - we will document. We also learned there isn't anything stopping a ward clerk from writing a FO check for an amount between $5K and $10K so the documentation is very important in a number of ways.

According to the General Handbook,

"22.5.2.1
Medical or Other Health Care
Each Church area has established approval limits for using fast offerings to pay medical, dental, or mental health expenses. These limits are recommended by the Area Presidency. They are approved by the Church Welfare and Self-Reliance Executive Committee. Limits may vary by region or country in an area. When bishops use fast offerings to help pay for medical, dental, or mental health care, they should not exceed these limits without appropriate approval."

Hope it's helpful.

This discussion has been focused on medical limits (per the body of the OP), although the title of the post doesn't indicate that. I am only aware of the Handbook specifications on medical expenses; other forms of fast offering expenses such as housing seem to not have any specified limits (but definitely are not limitless ). I believe that sometimes people mistakenly take the medical expense limit and apply that limit to other expenses as well, which to my knowledge is not official policy. But perhaps there's clarification on this out there...

BrianEdwards wrote:I am only aware of the Handbook specifications on medical expenses; other forms of fast offering expenses such as housing seem to not have any specified limits (but definitely are not limitless ).

True, but I think non-medical expenses quickly run into other limits such as "temporary" and "Church assistance is meant to sustain life—not to maintain lifestyle" (22.4.2) I suspect the reason there's a limit on medical is that it can quickly turn into a bottomless pit.

Whatever the bishop decides, it will be reviewed in his interview with the stake president (22.9.1.1)

The General Handbook states that
"22.5.2.1
Medical and other health care
Each Church has set approval limits for fast offerings that pay for medical, dental or mental health expenses. The Area Presidency recommends these limits. These limits are approved by Church Welfare and Self-Reliance Executive Committee. These limits may differ by area or country. Bishops should not use fast offers to pay for mental, dental, and medical care without approval.

We hope you find it useful.

I don't see this mentioned yet in the thread, but in the current (Nov 4 2022) online Handbook, section 22.5.2.1 has a link Use of Fast Offerings for Medical Expenses. I can't speak as to what happens for members in other countries, but clicking that for me brings me to the page with policy guidelines for medical expenses in the USA & Canada. This is where the current limits are specified. This page also has more details about issues specific to medical expenses, than what's available in the Handbook.

PS: the help center link referenced by @waltbristow earlier in the thread takes me to an empty page. I expect it's not an access issue for me, more likely the Help Center was updated with a new article elsewhere (perhaps the one the Handbook now references). FWIW.


[moderator note: The limit values were removed from the post since the Code of Conduct does not permit posting "Direct quotes from any official documents that the Church has not made public (such as official letters), although you may provide references to chapter, page or section numbers."]

BrianEdwards wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 11:51 am I don't see this mentioned yet in the thread, but in the current (Nov 4 2022) online Handbook, section 22.5.2.1 has a link Use of Fast Offerings for Medical Expenses.

Access to the page in that link is limited by calling. As a ward clerk I cannot access that page. So the information is not available to the general membership.

Not sure we should be quoting from links which are only intended for leaders.

Note to Mods:
Please feel free to remove the reference to the specific amounts in my previous post (as if you needed my permission!), I'd edit if I could but cannot. I was simply pointing to where the values stated in previous posts were likely obtained from, but if that's not kosher since it's a leader-only doc, completely understandable.

It is also helpful to note that the specific amounts vary by country, and an area presidency also has authority to adjust the numbers in their area.