Friends,
We are just over halfway through the year here at Normal Heights United Church which means it’s time to share a mid-year financial update on how our budget and overall finances are looking for the year.
First, the great news! Thanks to your generosity we are ahead on giving for the year by about 6%. Your commitment to giving regularly to the church has helped us to meet our mid-year goal for giving and we can’t thank you enough for how this really makes our shared budget possible. Thank you!
Next, the good news. Staff has done an absolutely incredible job of staying within their budgets for the year. Our staff ministry budgets are also on track to hit their target budgets and that is an absolutely excellent job on their parts to be creative with their ministries in order to stay on budget. Thank you staff members!
Lastly, the not-so-good news. We are currently running $9,000 over budget for the year due to two unforeseen increases in costs over these first six months. First, is our insurance costs which includes liability insurance, building insurance, volunteer coverage and workers comp. These costs have increased over the past two years by more than 20% including 12% in 2026. Although we do our best to always anticipate these increases it is an imperfect science and this year the increase was far beyond what we predicted which has led to the budget being weighed down by these increased expenses which must be paid. (We have also looked into other companies for coverage and verified that our costs are as low as possible.)
The other area of increased costs has been in building maintenance and repairs. Our trustees have done a phenomenal job of putting aside funds in good years to help us stay on our repair/maintenance schedule we created using an outside firm in 2020, but still there have been unforeseen broken pipes, broken HVAC units,leaks and other repairs needed this year in our buildings. These costs have also put a strain on our budget moving us into the red even beyond the increased giving from the congregation.
Although we have funds in a reserve account which we can pull from to make up this shortfall, the Finance and Trustees Committee really prefers to leave those funds for emergency uses only. Therefore, if you would like to help us make up this budget shortfall we would invite you to go to NHUnited.org/give and contribute today if you are able. Every single donation helps and we thank you so much for your continued support and care of this community and our shared resources!
Sincerely,
NHUnited Finance/Trustees Committee
