Northwest Unitarian Universalist Church

CALL TO ORDER:
Chris Doozan, Moderator, called the Congregational Meeting of Northwest Unitarian Universalist Church to order at 12:15 p.m. in the main church meeting room. It was determined that a quorum was present. There were no changes to the agenda.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Approval of the minutes of the last meeting was deferred to the next congregational meeting, as copies were not available for review at the meeting.

BUDGET REPORT:
Xina Stewart made a presentation about the budget, reviewing that an interim budget was passed in the June congregational meeting with the understanding that we would review the situation later in the year and possibly make reallocations for salaries.
Xina Stewart moved to adopt the document handed out at the meeting as the final budget, with the stipulation that the Personnel Committee would decide how to allocate the $5000 wage supplement, which would be allocated as a one time bonus among our three salaried employees. Seconded by Diana Kohler. (copy of document attached)
Stewart explained certain changes in the proposed final budget which do not affect cash flow but are bookkeeping items, such as changes involving the search and capital maintenance and reallocation of certain items relating to the minister. Explanations of these items were set forth in a letter from Tim Beckett.
Ted Danielson raised a concern that the Board should have the authority to change categories with respect to the minister’s compensation to comply with Internal Revenue Service regulations. He proposed this as a friendly amendment to the original motion, seconded by Mike Brown. No discussion was held on the amendment. Motion to amend the original motion passed.
Colleen McInerney noted that the minister’s salary traditionally included items that would not normally be considered part of salary, such as health care and FICA, items traditionally paid for by the Employer.
Amy Bachelder spoke against making the $5000 a one-time bonus rather than including it in wages, arguing that the staff deserved raises and to pay it as a bonus would make it easier to not give salary raises in the future. She urged a vote against the motion so that a new motion could be made that the $5000 would be included in wages, allocated by the Personnel Committee. John Amberger argued that the Finance Committee thinks that it is not fiscally prudent, given the state of our finances, to include that $5000 in base salary. Salary issues will be an important concern of the next canvass.
Hossein Azarbayejani a moved that we decrease the supplement from $5000 to $3000, but include it in base pay, as a compromise between the two positions. There was no second to this motion.
Discussion was held for and against the motion. LeeAnn Abell and others noted that many in the congregation were having financial difficulties and we are in a difficult economy. Ted Hitchcock pointed out that we do not currently have a functioning Personnel Committee. Ted Danielson pointed out that personnel expenses are the greatest part of the budget. In response to a question, Ted Hitchcock stated that the reason the motion applies only to the three salaried staff is that we just hired our secretary and the janitor recently received a raise.
A vote was held on the original motion as amended by Danielson’s friendly amendment. The motion failed.
Amy Bachelder moved to adopt the document handed out at the meeting as the final budget, with the stipulation that the Personnel Committee would decide how to allocate the $5000 wage supplement, which would be allocated as wages among our three salaried employees, with retroactive payments to be made as appropriate to the beginning of the fiscal year, with the Board having the authority to change categories of funds to comply with Internal Revenue Regulations. Seconded by John Amberger. Motion passed.

BUILDING PROJECT REPORT:
Beata Lamparski gave a brief review of the status of the building project, noting that issues involving parking have been resolved and explaining that because of height restrictions the soaring solar tower would have to be reduced in height. She said that both the Planning Commission and the Southfield City Council have been supportive and have approved our site plant with conditions. The next step is to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals where we will seek two variances: 1) we will seek to keep the green barrier with our neighbor rather than build a wall, as both we and the neighbor prefer and 2) we will seek a variance from the requirement that we put a sidewalk down Mapleridge, a result supported by the neighborhood association.

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO BYLAWS:
Melanie Deeds presented the proposed bylaw amendments involving the Personnel Committee. The amendments increase the number on the committee to seven, by including representatives of three committees.
Melanie Deeds moved to adopt the proposed bylaw amendments as set forth in the call for the meeting. Seconded by Diana Kohler.
Fred Peiss asked why the three committees were chosen to have representatives on the committee. It was explained that these were the three committees which had paid staff.
John Amberger proposed that the finance committee have a representative on the Personnel Committee, explaining that there may be financial considerations of Personnel Committee decisions that committee members might be unaware of, such as the benefit implications of increasing the hours of part time employees. Seconded by Xina Stewart. Motion passed.
Colleen McInerney said that the proposal had been made to have an odd number of members and therefore proposed eliminating the member that was a representative of the congregation. Seconded by Beata Lamparski. Motion passed 18 to 15.
John Amberger noted that the Finance Committee had previously raised an issue as to whether the committee representatives would be advocates for the paid staff working with their committees. He raised the issue again but said that the committee was not proposing any amendment because of this concern but would watch to see how the proposed amendment worked in practice.

A vote was held on the original motion to amend the bylaws as set forth in the call to change the composition of the Personnel Committee, as amended to add a representative of the Finance Committee and as amended to eliminate the representative of the congregation. Motion passed.

Adjourned at 1:20 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Amy Bachelder, Clerk