Cabinet Minutes
St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church
Cabinet Meeting
January 11, 2005 Present: Hob Weiss, John Berger, Pastor Glenn Berg-Moberg, Amy Swenson, David Christianson, Steven Toddie, Gregg Homstad, Joe Stinar, Caroline Berger, Jennifer Stucker, Mary Mergenthal, Jane Neumiller-Bustad, Siegfried Rabie. The meeting was called to order at 7:33 p.m. and devotions were led by Hob Weiss. The minutes of the Cabinet Meeting of December 14 were accepted. It was subsequently noted during the meeting that our benevolence obligations for 2004 had not been fully paid out until January 2005. The new Chairperson for the Outreach Commission, Jane Neumiller-Bustad, was accepted and welcomed to the meeting. Treasurer's Report: John Berger then presented the report for December 2004. It had been a very good month with receipts of $70,340. This gave a surplus for the month of December of $25, 844 and a deficit for the whole year of $12,727. Income for 2004 had been $22,912 more than in 2003 but expenses in 2004 were $67, 946 more than in 2003. There had been a surplus of $32,789 in 2003. John reminded the meeting that a budget recommendation was required for the Annual Meeting on January 24. With this in mind the budget process was reviewed with the aim of producing a balanced budget. John then presented the budget proposals. He first presented "Round One" which was the original budget requests from the commissions and the previous projection of income for 2005 based on the income figures up to November 2004. This had produced a projected budget deficit of $87,662.
The commissions had then been asked to reduce their requests where possible to reduce this deficit and this had been combined with new projections of income based on the final income figures from 2004. This was presented as "Round Two" with a projected budget deficit of $35,848.
John felt it was extremely important to take a hard look at expenses items, line by line. With this in mind John and Hob had come together the previous week and worked over the figures again, making cuts in programs, positions and salaries. This was presented as "Round Three" and gave a balanced budget with a small surplus of $4180. At this point a motion was made and passed without objection to extend the meeting to 9:30 pm. The alternatives for increasing income and thereby avoiding some of the measures in Round Three were reviewed. There were possibilities for charging or charging more for some programs such as VBS and Parents' Night Out. Fund-raising concerts, dinners and drives were discussed. There was the hope that members who had been giving to the 2nd century Capital Campaign would continue some of this additional giving to support for the operations of the church. Meetings with various groups or every member visits to explain the financial position and remedies were discussed. At this point a motion was made and passed without objection to extend the meeting to 10 p.m. The committee and treasurer then reviewed the Round Three proposals point by point restoring funding for some items. This produced a budget with a projected deficit of about $16,000. A motion was made to present this deficit budget to the January Annual Meeting with the stipulation that come May, if the financial position were not improving, the cabinet and treasurer would put cuts into effect to balance the budget. This motion was passed without objection. Staff Reports: Pastor Glenn Berg-Moberg reported that he had received a letter from Merriam Park Food Shelf expressing their appreciation of our benevolence gift to them. He also reported that Thrivent had made a donation of $1000 to the church for our co- operation in a survey to be conducted on this Thursday and he asked for assistance from members at the meeting for meeting with Thrivent. He also reported further on news from Pastor Amy Thoren and her group travelling in Israel. The meeting closed at 10:05 p.m. with the the Lord's Prayer. Submitted by Siegfried Rabie, Secretary.
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