Financial Responsibility and Irresponsibility

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 19, 1908

Financial Responsibility and Irresponsibility

The plans followed throughout this denomination in order to safeguard the people's money which is handled in conferences and institutions may be generally known, but it seems to be a good time to direct attention to this subject.

In all the conferences, local, union, and General, there are auditing committees appointed whose duty it is to examine the report of each laborer and pass upon his expense account and decide upon his remuneration. In many of the conferences each laborer is required to make a monthly report, which keeps the conference officers fully informed as to the use he is making of the funds remitted to him.

The accounts of each conference, local, union, and General, are audited annually by competent auditors, whose duty it is to examine all the records of the office to see that all expenditures of money have been made by proper authority, and that all sums placed in the hands of the treasurer are properly accounted for. In each case the treasurer's report and the auditor's report are submitted to the constituency at its regular meeting, and all the financial transactions are open for inspection and criticism.

Each denominational institution is under the direction of a board of trustees elected at stated times by the constituency, who have general charge of the affairs of the institution and appoint the executive officers. The books of the treasurer are audited by a competent auditor, after which the report of the treasurer and of the auditor are submitted to the constituency for their action upon them. To indicate the care with which such auditing is done, we will state that it requires about three weeks annually to audit the books of the Review and Herald Publishing Association, and that the auditor examines and checks between twenty-five and thirty thousand letters, orders, and vouchers. Any error, even to the entry of any sum in a wrong column which does not affect the final result, is reported. We doubt not that other institutions are equally particular concerning their audit.

As a primary guarantee of the proper handling of the funds, great care is exercised in selecting competent and reliable persons to fill the official positions, and in providing proper safeguards against the imprudent expenditure of all funds.

The Mission Board has taken much pains to secure at first hand such information concerning general conditions and the mission problem in the various countries in which it operates as will enable it to act understandingly in the appropriation of the funds entrusted to it, in order that the money donated by the people may be expended to the best possible advantage in doing a world-wide work. The amount designated for each field is determined upon in a council of the General Conference Committee after receiving an itemized estimate from those on the ground and in charge of the local work. In this way the local needs are fully presented, and each estimate is considered with reference to the total of all the calls for the world-wide territory. This method commends itself in the interest of justice to every field.

In the face of all these ways for guarding the expenditure of the denominational funds, in the face of the fact that every committee and board is directly responsible to a constituency, and in the face of the fact that those who handle the money do not assume their positions, but are chosen on account of their fitness and reliability, every now and then some entirely irresponsible person will throw out insinuations about the improper expenditure of funds, and will constitute himself the irresponsible treasurer for all the people, and then invite them to send their money to him, with the assurance that he will see that it is used where it is needed most. Without any special information concerning the needs of the field at large, without any direct connection with the workers in the fields, and entirely unhampered by the safeguards employed by the representatives of the denomination, these self-appointed committees of one ask the people to recognize them as more wise and more reliable in the handling of funds than the regularly appointed committees and boards. Such self-assurance is most remarkable.

It is quite proper that the people should have full information concerning the use made of the funds of the denomination, and this information is furnished in the duly audited reports which are made from time to time by the different committees and boards. Let the people become better acquainted with the business methods employed by their representatives, learn from the reports how the funds are expended, and study the results, and they will have increasing confidence in the administration of their affairs.