crislapi wrote:This has worked well for me at both a ward and stake level. Now here's a twist on it. One of the ward's in my stake wrote a reimbursement check at the end of 2007 for $90 (taken out of budget). However, it was not cashed because in 2008, the payee informed the clerks the check had been made out incorrectly - it should have been for $900.
So while they get the credit for the $90 they wrote in 2007 using the approach mentioned here, I'm curious if there's a way they can also get the remaining $810 from last year's budget as well. I'm assuming, of course, that they had that much remaining in their 2007 budget.
My research tells me no: the difference will have to come out of this year's budget. If someone could please tell me I'm wrong, you'd make me very popular!
There's no way to answer this question without understanding your stake's budget policies. The stake president has the authority to specify how the stake's budget allowance is distributed among the wards. Part of this process involves how surpluses are carried forward from year to year.
At the stake level, budget surpluses are always carried forward in their entirety. I say "always" based on my experience of 7 years dealing with stake finances; I suppose it's possible that the Church could change this policy, or that if the surplus were too great, the Church would ask for some portion of it to be returned to general Church funds. But I think it's reasonable to make this assumption.
So then the question is how the stake deals with budget surpluses (or deficits) in the individual wards at the end of the year. I have personally seen, or heard of three different approaches. Any of these can be entirely appropriate within the Budget Allowance program and is within the stake president's discretion.
- Wards do not carry forward any budget allocation. The new year's allocation is based on whatever formula the stake uses to determine the specific allocation for each ward. A variation on this (to encourage fiscal responsibility by the wards) is that any deficit will cause the new year's allocation to be reduced by that amount; essentially deficits are carried forward, but surpluses are not.
- Wards carry forward their entire surplus or deficit to the new year, just as the stake does.
- Wards carry forward any deficit, but surpluses are capped at some set amount (e.g., if the cap is $1000 and a ward has a $1700 surplus, they carry forward $1000, but if they have a $200 surplus they carry forward the $200).
So with this groundwork laid, let's move to your specific question. I'm guessing your stake does not use scenario 2, since with this scenario the question really is pointless -- the ward will have the same balance whether the $900 check had been written in 2007 or 2008. (Note that from an overall stake perspective, this same logic applies to the check no matter what scenario is used -- the net budget allowance balance across the whole stake after the $900 check is written will be the same, whether it was in 2007 or 2008.)
In scenarios 1 and 3, the stake will essentially be skimming all or part of the surpluses from the wards, putting those surpluses in the general stake budget, and then either reserving it or allocating it to the wards and the stake. From the way you posed the question, it sounds like your stake uses scenario 1, and furthermore that the stake skimmed over $810 from the ward at the end of the year in bringing the ward back to $0.
To charge the $810 against last year's budget essentially means that this ward is asking the stake to refund $810 of the amount the stake skimmed from the ward on the grounds that there was a good-faith clerical error. As long as the stake still has that money in reserve and hasn't made other promises to wards or to stake auxiliaries based on the availability of that $810 to the stake, this is an issue that is easily solved.
All that would need to be done is for the stake to make a one-time increase of $810 to the 2008 budget allocation for that ward. This of course would also mean that there would be a corresponding $810 reduction in the stake reserves, or the stake budget or (and this one would probably cause some grief) other wards' allocations. It's a bit more complicated with scenario 3, but it's still very solvable.
So you see that it can be done; it just is a question of the way the stake handles surpluses and deficits at the new year, and whether the stake uses skimmed surpluses in its calculations of how to distribute the new year's budget allowance among the wards.