Separate Wards with Combined Primary and Youth Programs

Just looking to get some thoughts here. Our stake will be combining the Primary and youth programs from two separate wards (aka barbelling). One of the wards will have the majority of the children and youth. I know the amount of children and youth is a big factor in determining a ward's budget. That said, assuming there will be a single budget for Primary, a single budget for AP and a single budget for YW, respectively, I'm thinking the amount that each ward contributes to those budgets should be commensurate to the number of children and youth that each ward has. For example, if ward 1 has nine YW and ward 2 has one YW and the YW budget is $100, Ward 1 would contribute $90 to the YW budget and Ward 2 would contribute $10. I'd be interested in your thoughts, if there's any official guidance from the Church about this, and, for those who have been in this situation, your experiences and any tips that you might have.

Hilohi wrote: Sun Dec 25, 2022 4:30 pm Just looking to get some thoughts here. Our stake will be combining the Primary and youth programs from two separate wards (aka barbelling). One of the wards will have the majority of the children and youth. I know the amount of children and youth is a big factor in determining a ward's budget. That said, assuming there will be a single budget for Primary, a single budget for AP and a single budget for YW, respectively, I'm thinking the amount that each ward contributes to those budgets should be commensurate to the number of children and youth that each ward has. For example, if ward 1 has nine YW and ward 2 has one YW and the YW budget is $100, Ward 1 would contribute $90 to the YW budget and Ward 2 would contribute $10. I'd be interested in your thoughts, if there's any official guidance from the Church about this, and, for those who have been in this situation, your experiences and any tips that you might have.

The biggest factor in the quarterly budget continues to be sacrament meeting attendance. I ran your hypothetical example and the numbers are close to what you suggest but not correct. Since each ward will get their budget from the stake based on active children and young people, it is critical that attendance be reported correctly, including visitors, for each Sunday that second hour is held. After the wards get their money from the stake each quarter they will need to work together to figure out how to handle activities held jointly. The two bishops would be the likely place for that to happen, unless it is delegated. The individual budgets are worked out by the wards as the wards get a single transfer from the stake. Although there is a PDF in finance>reports>budget explaining the quarterly allocation, that is not how the local ward budgets for the organizations and quorums are finalized.