Each year, the Session and its committees work on a budget. What follows is the calendar for this annual process.
1. Pastor notifies all committees to prepare a draft budget for their committee for the coming year. This should happen in August. Each Committee Chair can ask the Church Administrator for a copy of the current year's budget and the spending for the year to date, or for the past 12 months.
2. Each committee submits their budget requests to the Communication and Resources Committee. This should be completed before the September meeting of the Communications and Resources Committee. Included in this is the submission staff Cost of Living Adjustments based on Presbytery recommendations for all churches, and the recommendations for bonuses and merit increases that are recommended internally at Chapel.
3. The Communication and Resources Committee develops the "dream budget," including all budget requests as submitted. This should be completed before October 1st.
4. The "dream budget," or first draft, usually needs to be revised into a second draft. The Communication and Resources Committee cuts certain requests so that they fit past spending needs and current income projections. This should be completed before November 1st.
5. In Early November, there should be a gathering of all committee chairs and staff members to work together on the budget. Taking the second draft, everyone works together toward a reasonable budget. This provides greater ownership of the budget across the board and avoids making a single committee the "bad guys" in the budget process. It offers individual committees the opportunity to state their cases for increased budgets, and other committees to yield to the leadership of God's Spirit by offering to work within reduced finances so that the whole body of Christ can work together. At the conclusion of this process there should be a third and final draft of the budget.
6. At the Session's regular stated November meeting, Communications and Resources will present the final budget for approval.
2. Each committee submits their budget requests to the Communication and Resources Committee. This should be completed before the September meeting of the Communications and Resources Committee. Included in this is the submission staff Cost of Living Adjustments based on Presbytery recommendations for all churches, and the recommendations for bonuses and merit increases that are recommended internally at Chapel.
3. The Communication and Resources Committee develops the "dream budget," including all budget requests as submitted. This should be completed before October 1st.
4. The "dream budget," or first draft, usually needs to be revised into a second draft. The Communication and Resources Committee cuts certain requests so that they fit past spending needs and current income projections. This should be completed before November 1st.
5. In Early November, there should be a gathering of all committee chairs and staff members to work together on the budget. Taking the second draft, everyone works together toward a reasonable budget. This provides greater ownership of the budget across the board and avoids making a single committee the "bad guys" in the budget process. It offers individual committees the opportunity to state their cases for increased budgets, and other committees to yield to the leadership of God's Spirit by offering to work within reduced finances so that the whole body of Christ can work together. At the conclusion of this process there should be a third and final draft of the budget.
6. At the Session's regular stated November meeting, Communications and Resources will present the final budget for approval.
7. At the Annual Congregational Meeting in January, the pastor's terms of call, or salary changes, are approved.
