Values-based decision-making is now very much in vogue in liberal Jewish circles. Of course, just as saving money for a child’s college fund reveals quite different values than taking the same money to Las Vegas, all budget decisions reveal an organization’s values. However, anyone familiar with budgeting in a large inclusive organization knows that the final budget often reflects the values of those with the loudest voices rather than those of the majority. A committee typically creates the budget and the Board does not give its input until the very end of the process, when it is difficult to make major changes in priorities. Consciously making inclusive values-based decisions requires the involvement of a broader group early in the process.
This year, our congregation was presented with a unique opportunity. The combination of our community’s growth, the opportunity to hire a new Torah School Director and the increased needs associated with having a building generated a sizable pile of requests for new expenditures. Although all the proposals are valid uses of congregational funds, funding them all would require a 50-60 percent dues increase, which would definitely be an unwise choice for our community. Choosing which proposals to fund is the sort of major decision that rightfully rests with the Board and these choices needed to be made early in the budget process.
To create a process that would help the Finance committee gauge Board opinion, I designed a voting procedure that would give every board member’s voice equal weight, would allow each member to communicate their ranking of priorities and would also allow them to communicate the intensity of their support for each item they ranked. The system I adopted allowed each Board member to assign up to 100 points across 17 competing proposals. These included 16 proposals for new operating budget expenditures and also the option of a minimal dues increase. The only limit on how points could be assigned was that each voter could assign either all or none of their points to a minimal dues increase. The proposals to be ranked included hiring a full time bookkeeper, increased teacher salaries, parking lot maintenance, more chumashim, a student rabbi, substantially increasing the Education Director’s salary in order to attract an experienced Director, spreading the costs of Rabbi Fred’s upcoming sabbatical over more than one year, increasing janitorial hours to cover greater building usage, more money for programming and a variety of other worthy uses of our congregational funds. (Capital spending proposals, such as purchasing new computer and network hardware, accessibility related building improvements, paving the parking lot and landscaping were not included in this process because these belong in the capital budget and will be considered separately at a later date.)
Thirty-five out of forty Board members participated in the process, assigning points among the proposals to reflect their individual visions of what is most important for our community at this point in time. Deciding which proposals deserve funding represented a difficult choice with no right answer. At least one person assigned points to every proposal and no proposal received points from every participant.
After the voting was complete, the information was summarized in a number of ways. The issue of parking lot repair provides a good illustration of how different ranking systems convey different information. A simple count of the number of Board members voting for parking lot repairs revealed that 70 percent of the Board supports this proposal and so by this measure, it ranks as the second most popular proposal. Counting total points received from all board members, parking lot maintenance ranks 6th, far below hiring an experienced ed director or funding Rabbi Fred’s sabbatical over multiple years. Ranked by the average number of points awarded to this item by each of its supporters, parking lot maintenance ranked near the bottom, at 15th. In other words, most people agree we should probably repair the parking lot but, not surprisingly, no one is very enthusiastic about doing so. Finally, a composite of all these measures ranked it 7th in the list of 17 proposals. While convenient for explaining the principles involved, parking lot maintenance is fortunately an unusual case; most other proposals ranked either consistently high or low on all rankings.
Over all, the proposals garnering the most support from the Board were (1) hiring a full time bookkeeper; (2) increasing the Ed Director’s salary so we could hire an experienced professional; (3) spreading the cost of Rabbi Fred’s sabbatical across several years; (4) putting into the operating budget some overhead costs formerly covered by the capital campaign; (5) increasing funds for programming; and (6) making a variety of small improvements to the physical plant. To both repair the parking lot and to fund all these proposals given greater priority would probably require a 15-18 % dues increase. This exercise did not decide how much dues should increase next year; it lays out the Board’s values-based priorities for what should be done at different levels of dues. As the Finance Committee prepares the budget, this will be the first year they do so with a clear indication in advance of the Board’s priorities and its values.
Shalom uv’racha (peace and blessing),
Judy Gelman