RE Funding
One of the most frequent questions I’m asked by new families is, “is there a registration fee for RE?” Usually, this happens at the beginning of the year, but this year, I’ve had this question throughout. My answer is simple and complicated all at the same time. No, we do not have a registration fee for Religous Education at First Church. Religious Education is paid for through First Church’s General Fund. This fund is funded by the members and friends of the First Church community. During the spring, we have our annual pledge drive, where people pledge an amount, like NPR, to contribute through the year. You can, however, make a pledge at any time! We do not take any money from the larger Unitarian Universalist Association, in fact, we pay thousands of dollars in dues to them yearly. The suggested amount to give is 3% of your income. As an example, for a family making $60,000, that's a pledge of $1,800. For some, this 3% giving is a goal to reach, and that’s ok! Each family and their circumstance is different, and we as a community understand that. Part of our commitment to economic equity is assuming that families will give as much as they can give when they can give it. While we encourage each family to give as generously as they can to support our community and our goals as a liberal faith community in an illiberal theocracy, we gratefully accept each generous gift with so much love. As you may have heard on Sunday, our pledge drive for the 2019-2020 fiscal year is not where it should be. We are at about 84% of our goal, or $500,000. This sounds like a crazy amount of money, but it is $89,000 under what we need to maintain our current church budget. With that amount of shortfall, drastic budget cuts will need to be made. Per our bylaws, we are not allowed to vote on an imbalanced budget (we’re not the federal government.) When I say drastic budget cuts, this is what I mean: hourly staff will have hours reduced, program budgets (music and RE) will be cut no less than 10%, staff salaries will be cut around 10%, committees will lose funding, etc., etc. This is not a pretty budget, and it is a budget that our entire community will feel the effects of. About 50% of families enrolled in RE pledge. If you are a family that has not pledged yet this church year, I encourage you to do so. If you’re a family that has pledged, but you realize now that you may be able to give more, thank you. There are two ways you can pledge. One is Sunday mornings in Eliot Hall or the main office. The other is by emailing our church administrator, Carol Foster, at . If you have questions about the budget, I encourage you to attend a budget information session on May 12th at 10:15 in the main Sanctuary. Church Board leadership, as well as our Church administrator, will be there to answer any questions. You can also email Rev. Tom Goldsmith, or our Board President, Peter Esko at . Finally, I encourage everyone to attend our annual congregational meeting on May 19th at 12:30. While only members can vote, all are welcome and encouraged to attend. Childcare is also available during the meeting. This is not a fun topic. It's not parties or social justice organizing, or youth singing. We need to talk about funding though, in order for all of the good works that First Church does in our community to continue. Continuing this conversation is important, and I encourage everyone to reach out to any of the community leaders mentioned above, attend meetings and become involved in the leadership of this community. In Peace, Amanda Esko Director of Religious Education
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