Council proposes 3.39% increase for 2006 budget

Finance agency sends
$8.57 million fiscal plan
to June 1-4 conference

The Southwest Texas Conference finance agency is proposing a 3.39 percent budget increase for ministry and administration during 2006.
The Council on Finance and Administration voted April 1 to send the proposed $8.57 million spending plan—and the apportionments to fund it—to the June 1-4 annual conference session for consideration.
Budget details are to be included in the pre-conference report mailed later this month to clergy and laity representatives of the region’s 350 United Methodist congregations.
The proposed 2006 percentage increase is about 0.5 percent less than local congregations raised spending over the past two years, said Robert W. Woolsey, finance council chair. The fiscal agency tries to limit proposed budget increases to no more than the rate that local church spending has gone up.
“All (conference) agencies were very helpful and cooperative in submitting budgets that did not exceed that goal,” said Woolsey, a member of First UMC, Corpus Christi.
The proposed spending plan includes a recommendation that conference treasurer David A. Seilheimer be directed to adjust amounts within the $78,737 South Central Jurisdiction apportionments for 2005 to cover changes in that asking approved last July, Woolsey noted.
The 2004 jurisdictional conference, which met in Corpus Christi, reduced its administrative apportionment for 2005 through 2008 but raised askings for three other causes: Mount Sequoyah Assembly in Fayetteville, Ark.; Lydia Patterson Institute in El Paso; and the Southern Methodist University Wesley Foundation in Dallas.
“We will propose to annual conference that we allocate the same amount of money to the jurisdictional conference (overall), but that it be redistributed (among the four askings),” Woolsey said.
Biggest percentage increases in the proposed budget are found in the Administration Fund (up 7.37 percent) and Pensions (up 5 percent).
Major changes in the Administration Fund include:
> A 164 percent increase in the Mount Sequoyah asking—from $3,499 in the 2005 budget to $9,254 in the 2006 budget.
> A 20 percent jump in the line item covering expenses of the annual conference session in Corpus Christi—from $57,100 in 2005 to $68,376 in 2006.
> A 5 percent rise in allocations for the Treasurer’s Office—from $365,551 to $383,191.
The pension increase reflects rising operating expenses for clergy retirement and health benefits.
Two funds propose smaller budget askings for 2006:
> Africa University—down 3.18 percent from $40,944 to $39,642. That decrease reflects an action by the General Conference. A denominationwide apportionment supports the school in Old Mutare, Zimbabwe.
> Ecumenical Causes—down 0.99 percent from $54,909 to $54,367. The decrease reflects a change in the denominationwide apportionment for the Interdenominational Cooperation Fund.