Funding FSY

[ckmcdonald]

I understand that:
- Church policy for FSY is that attendees pay $75/youth and that the Stake/Ward pay an additional $75/youth from the budget. ($150 total)
- FSY is held every other year.
- The Stake receives $12.50/youth/quarter in budget funds ($50/year/youth).

Over 2 years the budget funds received per youth will be $100. Of that $75/youth (75%) will go toward FSY.
Assuming that the majority of the youth opt to attend FSY this will cut the overall youth activity budget to 25% of what the program is accustom to having.
That is a drastic cut.

The only way around this would be to:
- Have a fund raiser.
- Not attend FSY.
- Take budget funds from other organizations (not very feasible given the size of the expense).

I'm also assuming that asking the youth to pay $150/head to attend FSY is not recommended/allowed?

Is my understand correct?
How is your Stake/Ward handling funding FSY?

[russellhltn]

Some additional information on the LUBA Billing Information page.

I can't say as I'm wild about their suggestions for transferring member payments and fund-raising to the Budget-FSY category. It seems to me that would trigger additional scrutiny by the auditors to make sure the budget isn't be supplemented by member donations or fundraising.

[mkmurray]

I have some further questions about a Ward Clerk's role in funding FSY for the youth:

I feel very comfortable with the guidance about how much money per youth and in what budget category to hold the funds in, and even how to handle a situation where a youth might get ward assistance in their participant fee. However, I'm not finding a way to see a report of what youth have registered and which haven't. I'm aware of the Bishopric Youth Approval tool, where apparently it is also indicated if the youth will be getting assistance?

However, it seems ward clerks don't have access to that tool (which makes sense that a Bishopric member needs to actually have the edit/approver access); but how can I at least view those decisions by the Bishopric and also a report of who has registered so I can fund the FSY budget category appropriately?

Thanks in advance.

[mkmurray]

Perhaps there isn't a straightforward report on this available to a ward clerk? Should I just rely on a bishopric member for such reporting?

[davesudweeks]

If you don't have access to the needed report, you will have to get if from someone who has access. You can provide feedback from any church web page requesting consideration to add that report to the access table for unit clerks. If you go that route, I recommend you include your business case for needing the report so when the request gets to the decision makers they understand the reason for the request.

[sbradshaw]

I think the ward and stake FSY representatives have access to a report that shows members registered for FSY. Does your ward have an FSY representative called?

[mkmurray]

I think the ward and stake FSY representatives have access to a report that shows members registered for FSY. Does your ward have an FSY representative called?

It appears that the YW Presidency and YM Presidency (Bishopric) have taken on the responsibility to track, encourage, and support parents and youth on FSY registering logistics. Either by choice or necessity, we haven't utilized calling a dedicated FSY representative at our ward level.

However, if there is a report I would benefit from as ward clerk that I don't otherwise have access to today, perhaps the bishopric could consider listing me in that calling? Otherwise, I am reliant on them to provide me a report of how many are registered so I can work on ensuring the correct dollar amount is placed in the right budget category according to the funding instructions that have been shared on the Church website.

[mkmurray]

I think the ward and stake FSY representatives have access to a report that shows members registered for FSY. Does your ward have an FSY representative called?

It appears that the YW Presidency and YM Presidency (Bishopric) have taken on the responsibility to track, encourage, and support parents and youth on FSY registering logistics. Either by choice or necessity, we haven't utilized calling a dedicated FSY representative at our ward level.

However, if there is a report I would benefit from as ward clerk that I don't otherwise have access to today, perhaps the bishopric could consider listing me in that calling? Otherwise, I am reliant on them to provide me a report of how many are registered so I can work on ensuring the correct dollar amount is placed in the right budget category according to the funding instructions that have been shared on the Church website.

As an update and since we never called an official FSY representative, I decided to add myself into the calling to see if I could get access to any reports I couldn't before. And yes, I did. As a rep, you can get access to the Youth Report and Assistant Counselor Report on this page: FSY - Bishopric or Branch Presidency

Really not sure why a ward clerk can't see a report like this. Pretty necessary for properly funding the FSY budget for the ward portion of the payment. There is no other way I know of for the ward clerk to get that info on their own. Seems like an oversight perhaps?

BTW, I found a bug in how that Youth Report calculates total count of "Registered" youth (which again, is important for proper funding). It appears to count all registrations including "transferred" and "withdrawn" registrations, inflating the number to be larger than you would expect. The other total counts alongside it more accurately count number of unique youth Approved, Likely to Attend, and having Attended an FSY conference. But the Registered count seems to be all rows, even those youth who have multiple registration rows due to changes and withdrawals. In my current unit, it states 54 "Registered" but it should be 48 because 5 of the rows are "transferred" and 1 of the rows is "withdrawn" (and all 6 of them are next to a legitimate valid and active "registered" row).

I logged the bug via the Church's generic feedback form in the footer of all Church websites. Thought I would mention it here as well as an FYI to all other clerks and leaders, and perhaps as a more effective means to getting the feedback back to the developers.