2009/2010 General Assembly budget

The 2009/10 budget has been produced during a time of economic uncertainty and after a year of dramatically decreasing interest rates.

The reduction in interest rates during the past year is the most significant factor in our decrease in budgeted operating income, with budgeted income from investments decreasing by $530,000 to $896,000. This has contributed to a budgeted operating deficit of $334,000. When the 2008/09 budget was set, interest rates were 8 percent, whereas the current budget uses an interest rate of 4.5 percent. This deficit will be funded from previously generated surpluses. The Council is comfortable with this use of accumulated reserves to fund a short-term operating deficit.

The other notable feature of this budget is expenditure of $750,000 on the Archives and Knox Centre development, which was approved by General Assembly 2008. This one-off expense is entirely funded by funds accumulated through the sale of School of Ministry houses and general reserves.

We recognise that parishes are experiencing financial constraints so budgeted Assembly Assessment will remain unchanged for the 2009/10 year. Assembly Assessment now represents 9.0 percent of total parish income (reduced from 9.4 percent in 2008/09).

Budgeted staff, travel and administration costs have decreased by $333,000 or 22 percent so that they more accurately reflect actual expenditure. Service team leaders are aware of the need for restraint and have reduced administrative costs accordingly. Overall budgeted operating expenditure of $6,063,000 is 1 percent less than the previous year’s budget.

The provision for non-payment of Assembly Assessment is reduced by 19 percent. This is possible because of a significant increase in parish payments over the past two years.

Council acknowledges the work of the Assembly finance team and the Resource sub-committee in putting together the budget. We welcome your questions and comments, which can be directed to the Convenor of the Resource sub-committee, Cunningham Atchison, or to the Finance Manager, Brendan Sweeney.

On behalf of the Council of Assembly and the Resource sub-committee

Emma Keown                                              Cunningham Atchison
Convenor Council of Assembly                      Convenor Resource sub-committee

Table 1: Comparison between 2008/09 and 2009/10 budgets

 Table 2: Grants and donation expense

Expenditure on Global Mission is funded primarily from donations, grants and from interest income on reserves that are held specifically for Global Mission.

Table 3: 2009/10 Assembly Assessment Calculation