As the new BSLC Treasurer/Finance Officer with over 30 recent years of experience dealing with finance related to Non-profits, I have spent a good deal of time becoming acquainted with the BSLC finances.
I have met several times with Pastor Tony Scheer and Council President Dick Flones, Council Vice-President Andy Anderson, Secretary and Offering Justin Templin as well as Rebecca Vorholzer, the Director of the Academy; the BSLC Bookkeeper Donna Emmans and immediate past Treasurer Tim Duggan on several occasions and Jenni Pavesic our BSLC Office Secretary. In addition, I met the Chair of the Memorial Garden Greg Ogden, and Chair of the Property Committee Don Swanson.
We are in the process of establishing a Finance Committee.
I believe that at this point I have a rather complete understanding of the finances of BSLC and am pleased to be able to report that in my opinion that working together the Executive Committee of the Council, the Council as well as the people identified above that the “Light at the end of the Tunnel” is no longer a train, but rather a “Beautiful Sunrise”.
The “Team” has been working diligently to resolve the Budget deficit we were faced with as we entered this year. We have cancelled, renegotiated, or modified contract services and because of the “One Service” model are able to renegotiate some salaries and obviously save overhead costs.
We are correcting some profit and loss reporting formats related to the allocation of the ‘Shared Costs “ between the Church and the Academy.
It appears that our General Fund offerings at this point are either on par or ahead of the first quarter of next year, with one Sunday service remaining in this quarter.
Our goals are first of all, to resolve any remaining deficit issue, and secondly to enhance the amount of financial transparency in our reporting to the congregation.