PUMC Leadership Board (LB) Meeting Summary -- 13 February 2023
The second Leadership Board (LB)meeting was held on Monday, February 13, 2023. As a reminder, the LB replaces the four previous committees, Finance and Stewardship, Endowment, Staff Parish Relations and Trustees. These four areas are now part of the one, Leadership Board. Members of the LB are Raphael Aryeetey, Charles Bass, Ida Cahill, Chip Carstensen, Heather Hadley, Iona Harding, Lori Pantaleo, Ed Sproles, Jenny Smith Walz and Emelia Timpo.
The February meeting focused on two primary areas: setting the priorities for PUMC for the next 12 – 24 months and continuing discussions on how to address the 2023 budget deficit.
PUMC Priorities
Using the strategic plan goals for the next 1- to 2 years, staff and members of the Leadership and Discipleship Boards completed a poll to identify the top three priorities. We know that we cannot fully focus on all seven goals at one time, so it is important to identify the vital few that will help drive our PUMC mission and vision and make best use of our resources. As a reminder, click here for the PUMC Strategic Plan.
Here is the ranking from the poll:
1. (B) Establish a system to discover the gifts, talents, witness, cultural traditions, needs, hopes, spirituality type, etc., of all congregants (all ages - nursery through retirees)
2. (C) Establish a small group system / model / framework that is able to engage every person in a small group or activity setting (all ages -nursery through retirees)
3. (D) Develop a complete list of community partners engaged with PUMC (& KUMC) currently and in recent memory; assess our current connection with each; assess the vision and mission and connection potential looking for alignment with our own.
4. (A) Create a resource, tools, and action plan to further introduce the practices and concept of “Jubilee” / “Jubilee Community” to the PUMC (& KUMC) Community
5. (F) Identify the multiple cultures who comprise our church, identify the ways that our multicultural, multigeneration, and multi-gendered church is not yet intercultural, intergenerational, and inter-gendered in our worship and other programs and ministries.
6. (E) Discover how our building and physical and online spaces limit inclusion and participation.
7. (G) Discover PUMC’s (& KUMC’s) ecological impact
After much discussion, the Leadership Board agreed with the results of the poll that Goals B and C were of utmost importance followed by Goals D and A. The LB also acknowledged strong linkages among the different priorities and the impacts one priority will have on some other areas of work. LB voted to pursue Goals B, C and D as our immediate top priorities while recognizing that we are in the midst of a dynamic process and that the other goals will be revisited as needed.
If you would like more detail about the results of the poll, click here for the summary document.
Next steps include the Discipleship Board reviewing these priorities, identifying needed task forces to clarify and flesh out what it will take to achieve these top priorities. The DB will also begin to identify specific programs that will help us achieve these goals. Some will be things we already do, some will be new, some things we will stop doing. There will be many opportunities for you in the congregation to get involved in task forces, program planning and implementation. We will also follow up with Youth to see where they specifically want to get involved.
PUMC Budget
First, we reminded ourselves that our purpose is to focus on the Kin-dom, not just solve a budget problem.
Since our last LB meeting, a budget taskforce met and identified a possible $20,000 savings in areas including trustee-related work and office and administrative supplies. Some of the trustee-related items in the original budget can be covered by monies in temporary restricted funds rather than through operating funds. A second task force is also meeting to review headcount-related expenses and identify opportunities for expense reduction. All of these budget decisions will be informed by our PUMC Mission, Vision, Values and Priorities, making sure that we are focusing our resources in the most critical areas.
Even with the budget reductions already identified by the Budget Task Force, we know we are still facing a possible deficit in 2023 of between $53,000 and $70,000. We also know that there is so much opportunity for us to better focus our resources, tell our story, engage more with one another and the community and practice abundance. We know that while there are opportunities to reduce spending, there are also opportunities for us to increase our income through pledging and new forms of fundraising.
We decided that we needed a concrete goal for 2023 for the deficit that we can achieve through a combination of expense reduction and increased income. The Leadership Board voted to approve a deficit goal of $30,000 for 2023, requiring a minimum of $20,000 more in expense reduction and $20,000 more in income – or, $40,000 in a combination of cost savings and income increase to bring us to the $30,000 deficit goal.
This budget goal is, of course, short-term for 2023. Work will soon get underway to consider how we rethink everything in order to have a sustainable financial structure for 2024 that has no deficit and that positions us for the future to grow and live our Mission, Vision, Values and Goals.
Next Meeting
The next Leadership Board meeting is Monday, March 13. If you have any questions, would like to discuss or want to get involved with any of this work, please reach out to any member of the Leadership Board.