Dear Friends,

The idea for my bulletin article this month came to me one evening as I was driving home around midnight from the April PEC (President’s Executive Council) meeting. The PEC is comprised of the President, our six Vice Presidents, our Immediate Past President and Rabbi Disick. These meetings tend to be on the lengthier side; however April’s went way beyond the norm. That’s because it’s budget time.

It’s that time of year when the temple’s leadership engages in one of its less than spiritual tasks, which is developing the annual operating budget for Temple Sinai. This subject is one of those things that most of you really are not concerned with personally. You have vested the fiscal responsibility of the Temple in its officers and trustees. You have entrusted us to oversee the proper use of your dues and donations. However, I thought that it might be interesting for you to have a peek inside our thought processes concerning the budget, without having to stay up until midnight.

The Union for Reform Judaism states that the budget we create should “reflect the priorities of congregations in their efforts to create spiritually fulfilling communities, provide positive worship experiences, and respond to family and life-cycle needs.” (“Food for the Spirit: Synagogue Budgets”) This is the easy part. We have no problem creating all of the above. We are blessed with a team of creative professionals who, in collaboration with our lay leaders, can and do develop and implement diverse and innovative programming. We strive to create numerous opportunities in which to engage our sophisticated and diverse congregants. As we develop the budget, we repeatedly ask ourselves, “What are the synagogue’s priorities and how can we sustain our ongoing general mission?”

The next question that we inevitably ask is, “What resources do we need to further these goals?” At this point, we look at the bottom line of our first rough draft of the budget and realize that there is a substantial difference between our income and our expenses! Time to start cutting, but from where? Do we give up professional support for our youth activities, our much beloved Ruach, our newly developed adult education initiatives? We know we can’t do without heating oil, utilities, snow plowing or teachers.

With much consternation and tweaking on the expense side, we are able to lessen the difference, but it’s often not enough. However, there is another choice. We can reconsider our sources of income. The major recurring sources of our income include dues, religious school fees, revenue from the use of our facility (i.e., JCC Nursery School, B’Nai Mitzvah parties) and income from our cemetery. However, we understand that we cannot raise dues and school fees enough to close the gap, because it would just make membership too expensive. Consequently, we must look to other sources of income, which routinely include contributions to our many restricted funds, the Annual Giving Campaign, premium dues (fair share, Mensch and Tzaddik categories) and our annual spring fundraising event. The question becomes, “How much do we think we can rely on our members to support our sacred community?” The debate continues. We are really loath to reach out and continually ask our members for financial support, but we can’t bear to cut our adult ed offerings, Chavurah programs and special religious school art projects even more.

There is a balance we must find between maintaining the rising costs of our bare essentials, which includes worship, administration, education, the building and maintenance, and the costs associated with furthering our long-term vision and goals. We are a healthy, vibrant and growing congregation and we yearn to support and provide all that we can to our members. These are the frustrations we face as we progress through our budgeting process.

Please keep the above in mind when you receive your next dues pledge letter, annual giving campaign mailings and your invitation to our annual spring fundraising event. These are your own personal opportunities to support our growing sacred community. Thank you!

Meryl Japha
President