Dear OEFC Family,
We are pleased to announce that we will be holding our OEFC Annual Business Meeting on Sunday, December 6th at 5:00 PM.
We realize some of you may not be able to attend in person due to COVID concerns; therefore, we are taking the following steps to include all of our members.
- This week we mailed a ballot & stamped, self-addressed envelope out to all Members so that you can mail in your vote to the church office. (Only Members will receive the ballot mailing, as only Members are allowed to vote.)
- We will provide an opportunity to ask questions and comment with the Elders or COM, either by a direct phone call or a scheduled Zoom If interested in a Zoom meeting, please contact Donna, the church secretary (360-598-3400 or [email protected]) for details.
- If you are unable to attend the Business Meeting, please make sure that your mail-in ballot arrives at the church before Sunday, December 6th, so that we can have a clear count at the meeting. Please print your name on the envelope so we know that you have voted.
- For those attending the meeting, please bring your ballot and cast it at the church.
We regret that we have to operate in this way, and wish we were able to meet together as a body. However, our constitution requires us to hold this annual business meeting and we need to pass our budget before the New Year begins. In fact, for simplicity sake, we have limited our business to one item, the proposed budget for 2021.
A few notes on the 2021 budget itself:
- For the most part, the 2021 budget is nearly the same as the 2020 budget. The main changes involve Pastoral salaries and a cost of living increase of 1.4% for all employees and missionaries.
- Regarding pastoral salaries:
- We believe it is our duty and privilege to provide a livable salary to our pastors, since we as a local congregation have called them to leave the place where they were living to come and do the work of the ministry among us in Kitsap County.
- Due to IRS rules the employment relationship between the local church and its pastors is quite different than a regular job. Pastors work much like a private contractor and therefore do not receive normal employee benefits like social security tax payment, which means they must pay the full 15.3% self-employment tax on their salary in addition to their normal income tax.
- In addition to this, our pastors are currently shouldering the entire burden of their health insurance premiums because the church is unable to provide them with health insurance, which you know is quite expensive.
- We recognize this as a critical need for them and their families. But, due to the high cost of insurance we still feel that we cannot provide 100% of that cost, so to help defray health related costs and free up money in their family budgets for other needs, we have proposed increasing their Health Reimbursement Account or salary by $6500.00 per year. (To help understand this number, Pastor Mark’s Obama care insurance, high deductible, bronze plan, is approximately $1,000.00 per month or $12,000.00 per year.)
It is our intention to provide for the financial “needs” of our Pastors, and we believe this step gets us closer to accomplishing that.
By clicking these links, you will find the 2020 Annual Report and the 2021 Proposed Budget in pdf format. If for some reason you are unable to open either of them, printed copies are available from the Church Office. Please take some time to look over them and address any questions you might have to the appropriate Elder or Council Member.
Thank you.
OEFC Elders and COM