Update on pledges for 2017

As you would expect at this time of the year, the trustees are spending a majority of their meeting time working on next year’s budget.  Some of the line items in the budget are easy to put in, since we know how much certain things are going to cost, like oil, phone, insurance and so on.  Most of the committees have put in a request for next year, and we do try to respect those requests and carry the entire amount they are asking for.  Then comes the hard part; what do we do about salaries.  I think we can all agree that we have some of the best staff in the world, and trying to come up with numbers for salaries that says thank you to them, and at the same time is within expectations as to how much church members are going to pledge, makes this part of the budget process take the most time.  At this point in the year, we are still waiting for our church family to make a pledge for the coming year.  We can guess on a number, based upon previous years giving, but this is always the crystal ball part of coming up with the budget.

To date, we have received 47 pledges for a total of $97,162.  To give you some perspective, last year, we had a total of 60 pledges, totaling $103,000.  As the budget stands right now, we will need to raise around $108,000 in pledges, so as you can see, we still have a ways to go.

Please get your pledge in as soon as possible.  It makes the budget process so much easier, and will make it possible for us to go into 2017 knowing that we can afford to pay for the items and support the ongoing mission of our church.

Thank you – Rob