Changes
What’s Happening August 15, 2024
A few changes in staffing….I wanted to let you all know that we have had a few changes in staffing this summer.
Most recently, our Social Media administrator resigned on Monday of this week. Rochell was hoping to reduce her hours as her daughter was starting back to school. After discussing it we felt we needed her to work the hours we had originally contracted with her. She decided it was best for all parties to resign and handed in her letter of resignation. We wish her well in her new endeavors.
Meanwhile, over the summer our Treasurer, Ron Berg, the Finance Committee, and the Council have been researching the possibility of contracting out our bookkeeping to an accounting company. We received an advertisement from Finch PC, an accounting firm that only serves churches and non-profit organizations. We have had a number of conversations with them and have been impressed.
Ron performed his due diligence and also visited with three other companies- some small, some much larger- and in the end, came back to Finch as our best option. Finch is a medium-sized company, that works with 150 congregations and has good references.
There are several benefits to using an off-sight company beginning with the consistency of service, as they will have a team of 6 individuals working on our account. Also, we will not need to provide any new staff with the extensive training required for the accounting side of Realm. The annual cost for their services is approximately $15,000 a year, which is about half what it would cost to hire a professionally trained bookkeeper. Finally, they will be able to provide us with in-depth reports to help us look at the bigger picture of managing our resources, including setting our annual budget, planning stewardship
campaigns, and planning for our future as a congregation.
Therefore, Kari, our Parish Administrator will have those responsibilities which we have estimated to be about 50% of her job- taken off her plate. Consequently, we have asked Kari to take back the tasks we had allocated to Rochell including webpage, Facebook, and Instagram. She is comfortable doing this. In the short term, this will add more to Kari’s plate as the transition to Finch will not be completed until Oct 1. Please be patient with her through this transition, knowing her plate will, once again, be a bit overflowing. Some projects she was working on will be put on the back burner and she may not be able to quickly respond to requests from the congregation.
In addition, our Pastoral Care provider, Pastor Julie Wehner resigned at the beginning of August. We are happy for Pastor Julie as she was able to get a full-time chaplaincy position at Mercy in Waterloo to replace the half-time position, and two very part-time positions with no benefits that she had been working. Pastor Julie did a wonderful job caring for our home-bound members and will be missed, but we wish her well. We are just beginning the search for her replacement. We are hoping to find someone more local to assist with the hospital visitation, as Pastor Julie lived in Independence and, with her other jobs it was difficult for her to get to Iowa City in a timely manner, since most people aren’t in the hospital more than a couple of days at most.
Finally, in case you didn’t catch last week’s e-news, our Director of Children’s Ministry, Andrew Smith, resigned this summer. He and Hailey have four very busy children, and he needed to let go of some extra responsibilities. He has graciously agreed to continue assisting with Sunday School on a volunteer basis this fall as we search for a replacement.
Hiring new staff, as you probably know, is difficult at this time with unemployment being so low. Please be patient as we search for good-quality candidates. And, thank you to volunteers who are graciously stepping up to help cover the ministry of Zion in these areas.
