With Sharon Heightman’s retirement as our treasurer, we have brought in a new bookkeeper to manage our finances. Ms. Mel Wilczek is our new bookkeeper. She is the bookkeeper for all the Missouri Synod congregations in Salt Lake Valley and recently became Zion Lutheran’s bookkeeper. Although a modest amount, we anticipate her taking over the bookkeeping as a cost savings. She has her own copy of QuickBooks, which she distributes the cost across multiple clients, this saves us our rather pricey monthly subscription cost for QuickBooks only to perform payroll functions.Further, she charges a fee for service, and she anticipates that cost to be lower than our salaried treasurer position. After having chatted with her multiple times, I have been highly impressed with her knowledge of accounting practices, particularly related to churches.

Procedurally, she will stop by Mt Tabor on Mondays to pick up any bills or special check requests and drop off any completed checks. Because of this, we all need to plan out our check needs in advance if possible.  If you have a reimbursement request that has been signed by the appropriate person (committee chair or council liaison), put it in the office mailslot by the office door and it will be moved to a location for Mel to pick up the request. A week later, she will drop the check off at the office. The process is the same if you have a request for a special check (for example, for a guest pastor or guest musician). “ 

Finally, you might notice that she is a bookkeeper, not a treasurer. As announced in last month’s newsletter, Su Hui Francy Phay and Radek Omelianczyk are sharing the treasurer position. Su and Radek have oversight over Mel and will receive reports from Mel to be used in the treasurer’s report to the council. For those who have been around for a while, you might recall that we had the same bookkeeper and treasurer configuration when Marguerite Harrington  was our bookkeeper.

Dave Warren, council and congregational president.