Welfare Checks - Who should sign

The question has come up in Bishopric meeting as to whether any member of the Bishopric
could sign a welfare check on restrict that to the Bishop alone


Thank You

miorio wrote:The question has come up in Bishopric meeting as to whether any member of the Bishopric could sign a welfare check on restrict that to the Bishop alone

As with all expenditures, the Bishop must personally approve each check used for welfare assistance. But the actual signatures on the check can come from any authorized signer (except that no one may sign a welfare check that benefits himself or his family).

Details are in Handbook 1, where you will find the requirement that the Bishop must approve each expense, but you will not find any statement that the bishop must personally sign any check.

As with any check, there must be two signers. As for who they may be, ae_brown answered that adequately.

I would suggest that the only reason I would encourage a bishop to always sign a welfare cheque would be to keep the number of people who know about the welfare situation down to an absolute minimum.

Per the audit forms, the Bishop's signature on the expense summary printout is sufficient authorization for finance approval standards.

We are encouraged to operate a budget and so expenses for activities etc would already have been approved in principle and the counsellors would be paying for something that is already agreed. The Bishop would not need to sign the cheque but would approve the expense on the summary.

Welfare expenses are not normally planned in advance and so they would need the Bishops authorisation at that time. Having said that there will be occasions when a welfare need can be forseen and the counsellors can be authorised by the Bishop to sign the cheque.

A budget does not indicate Bishop approval of an auxiliary expense. It is true that bishops should approve expenditures in advance, but if not he still needs to provide evidence of approval for each expense. This can be done by having the clerk bring reimbursement request forms to bishopric meetings and having him sign them.

Old thread, but a new comment! Welcome GeraldD904.

Personally, I don't see any additional steps as being required anymore. Each month the Bishop needs to approve the Financial Statement, which includes a Donation Summary, Balances, and Fast Offering Analysis. The Balances tab includes individualized "Income and Expense Details" for that month, and when the Bishop signs off on the Financial Statement, he is also showing approval for all expenses included in the month's statement.

Now, that's my opinion, and I'm no auditor. So if I'm wrong from an audit standpoint, I have no problem in being corrected!

I have been out of the clerk saddle for a couple of years, but I believe the requirement is that the Bishop approves each expense in advance. There has never (at least in the past 10-15 years) been a requirement for him to approve it in advance "in writing." Even in the paper days, the expense reimbursement request was an "after the expense" document and it was assumed that if the bishop approved it he had also already approved the expense in advance.

I think there used to be an audit question to the effect of "has the bishop approved each expense in advance?" and a verbal response from the bishop during the audit was accepted without documentation (at least in my experience as a clerk through several bishops).

As with BrianEdwards, this is my opinion as well and I don't mind being corrected.

BrianEdwards wrote: Fri Aug 26, 2022 10:08 amEach month the Bishop needs to approve the Financial Statement, which includes a Donation Summary, Balances, and Fast Offering Analysis. The Balances tab includes individualized "Income and Expense Details" for that month, and when the Bishop signs off on the Financial Statement, he is also showing approval for all expenses included in the month's statement.

Just reviewing the financial statement is not sufficient for audit purposes (except for expenses charged through CHQ with an IROP, i.e. purchases from the distribution center or Staples). The bishop must either check each expense on the Bishops Review page in LCR or there must be paper documentation with his signature and a date. The Bishops Review checkbox is automatically checked if the Bishop is the second approver on an expense.

davesudweeks wrote: Fri Aug 26, 2022 12:11 pmI think there used to be an audit question to the effect of "has the bishop approved each expense in advance?" and a verbal response from the bishop during the audit was accepted without documentation (at least in my experience as a clerk through several bishops).

Although the handbook still implies expenses should be approved in advance (Handbook section 34.5.7 4th paragraph), there is no audit question currently about whether expenses were approved in advance. The auditor is only instructed to check for electronic or written approval.