Hallie Bowie, President of the Board of Trustees (she/her)

We are all a little more aware of the workings of democracy this fall, and the importance of people using their voices. In a few days- December 6th -the UU Church of Akron will be celebrating our own democratic traditions by having our fall congregational meeting. We have two of these meetings each year, and this is the one where we approve that moral document, our budget, for the coming year. The budget is where we make decisions about whether our valued church staff get raises or not, how much we pay in dues to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), how much we spend to maintain our building, and how much we as a congregation spend to support ministries such as the community meal. Those are important decisions, and the UUCA Bylaws require that we have enough members present to provide a good representation of the membership, so it is important that you attend.
The UUCA membership doesn’t build the budget from scratch during the congregational meeting of course. The bookkeeper and board treasurer, with input from the presidents of the UUCA Foundation Board and the Board of Trustees, put together a draft which the Board of Trustees approves to submit to the congregation. We can make adjustments during the congregational meeting, but those are generally pretty minor. Much of the budget is based on the real expenses we have had in the previous year. Many of the line items don’t change a lot (like internet and telephone ervice) and some are things we have little control over (like medical insurance for the staff). There are some things we have a lot of control over, like how much we pledge in donations to the church for the coming year.
As we put together the draft of this year’s budget, I was struck by the number of things that have changed compared to last year. Medical insurance continues to rise for everyone, but this year we also need to provide insurance for our minister. Rev. Tim didn’t need this as he was on his wife’s insurance. That was nice while it lasted, but now we need to adjust back to this very routine expense. We will have less in rental income from the preschool, because we wanted to support them through this difficult time when they have had to cut the size of their classes in half. We have set aside money for the ministerial search committee, added a communications coordinator to help us with our increasingly digital ministry, and included more on budget support for our social action ministries.
Watch your emails for a draft of the proposed budget. I hope you will take some time to review it prior to the December 6th meeting following the Sunday service. The meeting will be via Zoom of course. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about it, so you can arrive at the meeting informed and ready to let your voice be heard!