Do bishops ever compare which wards get more tithing money during the year? I know that paying tithing is a requirement to keep the temple recommend but back in the day when I was an active member I have noticed that some bishops would talk to me to increase my tithing money while some other bishops didn't.
subeamnotlogedin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Do bishops ever compare which wards get more > tithing money during the year?
It depends on the stake president. One stake president would make no bones about letting various bishops know that they were "low performers" meaning that they were collecting less tithing/offerings/donations than other wards of comparable size. It put a lot of pressure on the bishop to keep his budget in line with expenditures.
I didn't figure this out when my ward suddenly cut out every ward social and dinner. Not even a xmas dinner. [This was well after the Correlation cuts that dumped the church sponsored programs]. It got so bad that the RS president went up during F/T and cried that there were no ward socials. That caused a general sentiment that the bishopric didn't care.
It wasn't until I became a membership clerk and later ward clerk did I become aware that the previous bishop had been "loose" with the ward budget. Salt Lake had flagged the ward as spending more than collecting. The monthly and yearly financial reports (with surprise audits) put bishops in the hot seat for non-compliance with expectations.
I concur with messygoop. I too was a ward clerk and finance clerk for many years. At a year end meeting with the Stake President, each ward is compared with the other wards for how much was collected and how much was spent. Our ward was a big spender, mostly from the fast offering category. Our bishop was a compassionate guy, but that changed after being raked over the coals for spending too much on people who needed financial help.
Thanks for your replies. I thought that the tithing goes to Salt lake City head quarter and that the fast offerings stay in the branches or wards. The ward budget is determent by how many people attend sacrament. Someone please correct me. What happens with the fast offerings money? Does it stay in the wards or it is send to Salt Lake? Who makes the ward budget? The stake president? No it comes all from Salt Lake? Now I am going out on a wild ride what would happen if there is a branch X where everyone is poor? The branch x would hardly have any fast offerings collected but would need a lot of financial support. Would a rich ward Y sponsor the poor branch X? Or are the wards and branches so zoned that this doesn't happen? Sorry I am not trying to derail this original post. Why sign up for tithing settlement? Why don't they just assume it is full tithing? Are they adding up how much a member has paid in his/her lifetime on tithing? The temple recommends have bar codes on them I assume that is to track temple attendance. So tithing settlement is for? Even as an active member I thought it was strange the two boxes full tithe payer or partial tithe payer. God knows I paid my full tithing is what I thought why do I every year need to wait in line for the tithing settlement?
I was a finance clerk year ago. How I recall it worked was that excess funds in the ward where sent (or allocated) to the stake so they could be shared with the poorer wards who really needed. I'm not sure, but I believe excess funds at year end were sent to SLC.