Financial Budget Update
Dear Marble Congregation,
We are pleased to share with you our results for Fiscal Year 2024 (July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024) and the approved budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025).
View the Fiscal Year 2024 results.
View the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget with a summary of the budgets and actuals from Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024.
Highlights from Fiscal Year 2024:
Congregant Revenue through pledges was strong. We received $1,297,682 in pledge giving which represented an increase of $15,450 over the budget of $1,282,232. This is also an increase in pledge giving of $1,273,515 in the previous year.
Christmas Offering was strong with $34,569 received against a budget of $20,000, representing an increase of $14,569 over the budget and a doubling of the Christmas Offering from 2023 when we received $17,042.
The bulk of the deficit in total Congregant Revenue of $80,377 comes from decreased Easter Offering and Disaster Relief Funds (see next two points).
In Fiscal Year 2023, we received $197,515 for the Easter Offering. In Fiscal Year 2024, $140,609 was received and distributed against a budget of $200,000. This represents a deficit of $59,391 from what was budgeted. All monies received for the Easter Offering have been distributed to the organizations vetted and selected by the Marble Outreach Committee; no monies received for the Easter Offering were retained by Marble.
We had no significant disasters in Fiscal Year 2024 so that line is low. We received $1,036 against a budget of $30,000, representing a deficit of $28,964 from what was budgeted.
Of significant note is that we took $106,981 less than budgeted in our endowment draw, representing a draw of 5.3% ($1,890,441) against the 6.5% draw that was budgeted ($1,997,422) because Congregant and Program Revenue generated enough cash on hand for us to not need to draw more from the endowment.
On the Expense side we are pleased to note that every department prudently managed their budgets so most came in under budget for FY24. This was due to open staff positions that were filled late in the fiscal year and the continued cost-savings and cost-containment efforts on the part of each staff member to a person.
We were able to accrue $75,000 from the FY24 surplus, primarily to repair the main Chiller in the church building that failed early in the summer. That is a costly item to fix (estimated around $44,000). The remaining monies accrued to this line will be used for other property maintenance and repair needs that come up through the year. Remember we are now responsible for the expenses related to our sacred property (formerly paid for by Collegiate Church Corporation) so creating an ongoing building fund to keep our property in excellent condition will be a priority going forward.
Even with the reduced endowment draw and accrual of funds for building repairs, we ended FY24 with a surplus of $218,358.
You will notice in the FY25 budget that we are working to begin building back in some program areas and are looking forward to the time when we can strengthen our staff again and restore some budget areas to stronger levels. The attached FY25 budget has some adjustments that have been made from what was released to the congregation in June.
We were blessed in FY24 with some large-scale rentals of our facility and have strengthened the external rentals line in our FY25 budget to reflect more usage of our building for rentals. Program Revenue continues to increase the further we move from the pandemic.
Also note that in our FY25 budget, the congregant revenue line ($1,733.000) will be larger than the endowment draw line ($1,728,772) for the first time since the funding from the Collegiate Church Corporation ceased in 2021. This is the direction we will continue to go in as we move toward full financial sustainability.
We look forward to the next Congregational Forum on Sunday, November 3, immediately following Worship to be able to provide more detail and a larger overview of our financial path as we move forward.