You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us . . .
2 Corinthians 9.11
I quote Paul, at the top, because I do not want you to come to a specially called meeting (See Warning below) to talk about our budget thinking that the finance committee has bad news and wants to brow-beat you! We do not. Pledges are strong. We are only slightly behind our fairly optimistic guess of pledged income for the year. (I say “guess” even though we have a pledge drive every year, because, historically the total amount of pledged income at the end of the year exceeds the figure we have in hand at the end of the pledge drive.) This is one of the reasons for coming together to talk about the budget — our guess was a little too optimistic.
The fact of the matter is that this year has been tight on cash-flow from the beginning, and very tight in the budget. Last January, we passed a deficit budget and we wouldn’t be calling a meeting if we were simply proposing borrowing money from the trustees to make up the gap in the approved budget. Because income is several thousand dollars down from where we’d hoped to be at this 3/4 way point, we need to borrow more money. While our bylaws do not stipulate a special meeting be called, we felt it was important to share the information with you. We hope you can stay for the conversation and approval.
Warning:
At the request of the Board of Finance, the membership of the Waterbury Congregational Church, UCC of Waterbury, Vermont is called to a special meeting on Sunday, October 13, following worship to see if they will approve the transfer of an additional $6,000 from the endowment to the operating budget.