Financial Report

The local Santa Clara County economy still lags the nation’s but with your generous giving of time, talent, and resources, we continue to be bold in our mission.

FY04 2003-2004 - We last looked at FY04 together at the Congregational Meeting in June 2004. The final results for FY04 show we had a total income of $806k with expenses of $819k, resulting in a deficit for the year of about $13k. This deficit number is about what we had budgeted and approved before the start of FY04. A closer look at the numbers show that the General Fund income was below budget by $45k. On the expense end we were below budget by $47k with a major proportion of savings coming from the time when we did not have a Lead Pastor between October and early December. The staff and ministry leads are well aware of Bethel’s financial position and have cut back on expenditures where possible.

FY05 2004-2005 - Again we had the hard task of having to reduce staff hours, since most of the other non-staff expenses had been cut or reduced in prior years. With the help of volunteers, the office has been operating smoothly. At the end of six months General Income is $412k, which is over budget by about $6k. In June 2004 we were ready to place a call for our new lead pastor. Being unsure of exact expenditures for the call process, and having some further church-related expenses, a total of about 40k was placed into a Special Income Appeal category. As of December 2004, we have collected $7.4k. Thus the total income through December is $421k. Our six-month total expense is $397k, which gives us a net income of about $24k.

Earlier in November we did re-instate/increase Pastor Bancroft’s hours by 7.5 hours since his Care & Visitation Ministry greatly needed his attention and time. At the last council meeting of January 11, 2005, no mid-year adjustments in the budget were recommended.

Year-End Projections - We begin the last six months of FY05 with an actual net income of $24k. The difference between budget giving and expenses for the next six months (Jan 05 to Jun 05) is projected conservatively to be -$10k. This means we could end the year positive by about $14k. We are grateful for the pledges you have made.

During the past four years we have seen our budget drop from over a million dollars to around $800k. This has cut deeply in how Bethel has had to operate. Bethel has operated in a safe/survival mode, where all income is used to cover operating expenses. There were times when our income did not cover expenses, and we are thankful you responded to meet those shortfalls.

With Pastor Pabst on board, we realize that we were about $17k over in our estimate for the call expenses (we might have needed the full amount if the pastor came to us from the mid-west). As of December, about $7.4k has been collected out of the $40k in the Special Income Appeal. We would like to encourage that you continue with your generous giving. We had to postpone major maintenance repairs with bandage solutions, reduce staff hours, and freeze salaries. We would like to see funds set aside for maintenance projects, short and long term. We have a special staff, and they need to be recognized. However, we do have to proceed with caution since there are still some uncertainties in our economy.

At Bethel we are at an exciting point. We have completed our Welcome Zone project, we are blessed with exciting pastors, a dedicated staff, and numerous missions and ministries, so ………….let us go and serve the Lord.

Eusebio Menezes, Financial Officer

January 2005