Finance Ministry Report

Consulting with congregations and leadership – Church Business Operations

In the current year we continue to consult with congregational leadership regarding accounting methods and best practices, discretionary funds, parochial reports, budgets, internal controls, documentation and records retention, clergy taxes, and clergy housing allowances.

Hosting webinars

Several webinars were offered including: How to prepare your Parochial Report, Clergy Housing Allowances, Independent Contractor vs. Employee, An Assessment Study, and the Proposed Budget. We will continue to offer a variety of church finance and administration webinars through the next year. If you have a topic that you would like to see addressed, let us know!

Payroll & Benefits

Our ministry’s administration of payroll and benefits relieves congregations of the burden of payroll compliance and frees you up to do other good work. This includes employee onboarding for compensation and benefits, payroll tax filing and support, benefit administration and enrollment, administration of flexible spending accounts, and floating payroll and benefit expenses. This service assures compliance with the canon for the Denominational Health Plan, the Affordable Care Act, and Employer Shared Responsibility reporting requirements. This year we provided enhancements to the payroll processing which allows employee and employer self-service for reporting and updates, where appropriate.

Employment & Personnel Resources

We continue to field human resources questions, educate regarding California’s worker classification laws-e.g., employee versus independent contractor, advise regarding benefit compliance, church insurance, workers’ compensation, overtime rules, and California Labor law.

Looking ahead

Our goal is to continue to enhance current payroll and benefit systems and remittance processes.

We will offer several webinars including Preparing Parochial Reports, Clergy Housing Allowances, and AB-5 The Near Disappearance of Independent Contractors. If there is something you believe would be helpful, please let us know.

We are working to implement an online Parochial Financial Review, (formerly referred to as an “audit”). This will be a streamlined process to comply with the canons for a financial review.

It has been a gift to serve the diocese in this ministry. We give thanks for each of you every day. Please reach out if we can be of assistance.

Blessings,

Rev. Michele Racusin

CFO and Canon for Finance