Date: March 7, 2022
As Vice President Jacqui Ballou returns from her sabbatical, one of the first tasks that she has set herself is to progress the budget for 2022-23. The system is simple: we receive from the February Board Meeting the expected budget parameters. We then send out a draft budget to each department and invite them to review their plans for the next budget year. Then budget meetings are organized, where Jacqui and I meet with each department head to discuss their needs. We then produce a draft, which then goes back to each department. And then a final version of the budget goes to the Finance Committee for their consideration, before being voted by the full Board in May.
We are constructing this budget in a season of some uncertainty. The invasion of Ukraine has created considerable uncertainty. This invasion and related sanctions will continue to disrupt supply chains; this, in turn, will continue to add to the inflationary pressures in the economy. We will need to tread very carefully over the next few years.
The Budget might not sound like a work of faithfulness, discernment, and holiness. But it is. We will approach this work with prayer. We are trusting that God will be in our decisions.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President