One thing we haven’t talked about yet on our blog is the financial impact to Wildflower of hiring a new minister. Since the congregation will be voting on these expenses at our December 8, 2019, congregational meeting, we’d like to take a moment to talk about that now, and explain the three different areas in which we are needing to spend money: the search process itself, the moving costs of a new minister, and the salary for a new minister.
Search Process
The search process itself is not an inexpensive proposition. But so far, we are pleased that our expenses have been right in line with what the UUA expects. The UUA suggests that churches budget about 5 to 7% of their annual budget on the search process. Wildflower’s annual budget for 2019 was $239,000, and the Search Team has set forth a search budget of $14,000, or 5.8%.
The primary expenses for our search are the following:
- Costs during pre-candidating weekends, when we will be paying for the flight, hotel, rental car, gas, and food, of three ministerial candidates and their partners to come visit with the Search Team on three different weekends: $5,290;
- Costs during candidating week, when our selected ministerial candidate, along with their partner/family, will be in Austin and visiting with Wildflowers for 10 days, ending in our congregational vote. We will be paying for their flight, hotel, rental car, gas, and food, as well as paying the candidate to preach on two Sundays in a row: $4,457;
- Coaching/consulting services from the UUA to assist us in our search: $1,750;
- Cost of our Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop: $500; and
- Childcare for our BCT workshop, three cottage meetings, and seven focus groups: $780.
We’ve also had other miscellaneous expenses, such as food at our Team retreat, the cost of the survey website, attendance at a search-related workshop at General Assembly, and so on. If you would like more information about our expenses, please let us know at search@wildflowerchurch.org.
While our entire search team budget is $14,000, that is split over two calendar years. The bulk of the expenses — $12,000 — will be in 2020, while $2,000 has been budgeted for 2019. So, at next month’s congregational meeting, you will only be voting on the 2020 expenses — $12,000. You should also know that we have over-budgeted our projected expenses, in an abundance of caution. We are very hopeful that we will spend less than the budgeted amount. (In fact, we have already spent less than anticipated in some areas; for example, most of our focus groups did not require childcare.)
Moving Costs
The UUA recommends that congregations budget $15,000 for moving costs, and our Negotiating Team (Tommy Lukens, Michael Heinich, and Carol Knight) has suggested following that recommendation. This amount will cover things like airfare and moving vans for the new minister and their family. Depending on where they currently live, this cost may be much less than the budgeted amount.
Salary
The new minister’s salary is the final expense in this process. For your information, Rev. Ferguson’s annual salary and housing payment for 2019 is $61,350. Added to that are income taxes, pension, insurance (health, dental, and disability), professional expenses, and the minister’s discretionary fund, for a grand total of $87,907.
For our new minister, our Negotiating Team would like to begin our negotiating by offering a salary and housing payment of $65,000. But, given the cost of living in Austin, we are very hopeful that the congregation will approve us ultimately offering a salary and housing amount of $70,000. Adding in all the other miscellanies may bring the total package to around $91,000, depending on the minister’s desired extras. Just for your information, the UUA recommended ministerial salary for churches of our size in our geographic area ranges from $49,900 to $75,000, but this does not take into account that Austin has a 30% higher cost of living than other cities in this area.
Conclusion
As you can see, we’ve got a lot of expenses coming up. But we on the Search Team consider these expenses to be an important investment in the future of Wildflower. We very much hope that you agree! Please plan on attending the December 8 congregational meeting to learn more about these costs and the search process in general, and to ask any questions you may have. We also recommend attending the Board’s Budget Forum this Sunday, November 10, at 1:30 p.m. in the Community Room, when Tommy Lukens will be present to discuss the Search Team portion of the budget. And, of course, you are always welcome to email us at search@wildflowerchurch.org. Thank you so much for your continued involvement in our search process!