Kingdom Hall Accounts Report (page 2)

blondie

There are proper checks and balances in place and they work if they are followed. The brother collecting has to have another brother there with him when he collects and counts and records it on the receipt slip. They both sign (initial) and turn it into to an elder (usually the secretary in the congregations I attended). A different secondary brother is used each time. Believe me the accounts servant doesn't want to given anyone room to accuse him of dishonesty. Those slips are used later when the 3 month audit is done or delegated by the PO. The only time I have seen money go awry is when the elders do not do a proper audit, usually due to incompetence. One note about contributions, the report given each month is for the previous month. So if you donated a sum in March, the report read in April is for February. BTW if you donate $250 or more to any charity (non-profit organization) in the US, the IRS requires a receipt from the organization to prove you donated.

Also, when you donate to the congregation, it is hard to designate how it is spent unless you set up some legal arrangement, signed and witnessed. BTW every November or December the WTS has an article as to how you can give conditional donations legally. But I know of cases where they have tried to renege on that...but the individual prevailed due to their persistance.

Blondie (accounts servant's wife)

BluesBrother

make copies of the accounts Report and pass them out to all attendees at the Kingdom Hall so they can follow along as he reads the report?

because 99% of the dubs are totally disinterested in these matters, as I was myself. The naive belief that everything is being looked after means that they don't have to worry.

When I was the accounts servant, it was a thankless job. I can recall walking home around 10 pm through the busy town centre with considerable cash in my bag and feeling very vulnerable. You were supposed to bank it very promptly but in those days banking hours were short and I could not get to the bank so often . The congo used to remonstrate about, that but since I was "Spiritually qualified and willing , they kept me on the job. Nobody else wanted to do it . It is true that Accounts Servants are not chosen for ability or academic qualification .

I believed then, and now, that the accounts should be professionally audited

willyloman

In many congos, handling the money is delegated to a ministerial servant. It involves paperwork, and most dub elders hate paperwork so they find a flunky to do it. This has led to numerous problems.In one case I recall vividly, several thousand dollars were embezzled. The accts svt was having some personal financial problems which came to light when he was fired from his job and charged with embezzlement. This made the local news. The elders had one of those after-the-Thursday-night-meeting meetings to discuss what impact this had on his "qualifications" as a min svt and someone asked the obvious question: Are the KH's accounts in order? He'd been in charge of our check book and bank deposits for nearly two years.

Two of us were assigned to visit him and he confessed that he had "borrowed" some money from the KH account and meant to pay it back. To the best of his recollection, he "owed" the Hall about a thousand dollars.

The PO assigned two elders to audit (or re-audit) the books going back two years. I was one of them. We decided to look further than that and went back four years, to establish a trend. The monthly deposits were fairly consistent for almost three of the four years, but beginning about 15 months back in time, they started to taper off. Based on the average for the previous three years, compared to the 15 months that followed, we estimated an average monthly shortfall of about $200. That suggested he'd "borrowed" as much as $3,000.

We confronted him with it and he denied it was that much, then said he'd put "some" of that back later but couldn't remember how much or when, and finally broke down in tears and told us all about his many financial problems. It was clear to us that he was much more focused on his work situation. They were accusing him of taking something like $40,000 out of the store's vault over a two or three year period and he was looking at potential jail time (a later plea bargain reduced it to probation and restitution, but of course he lost his job). We reported our findings to the BOE. He was removed from his position and shortly thereafter, he sold his house and moved away after writing a check to the KH for $250 and promising another five or six hundred. However, we never heard from him again.

The BOE, in its inestimable wisdom, elected not to announce any of this to the congo for fear of bringing further reproach on god's name.

unclebruce

because 99% of the dubs are totally disinterested in these matters, as I was myself. The naive belief that everything is being looked after means that they don't have to worry.
When I was the accounts servant, it was a thankless job. I can recall walking home around 10 pm through the busy town centre with considerable cash in my bag and feeling very vulnerable. You were supposed to bank it very promptly but in those days banking hours were short and I could not get to the bank so often . The congo used to remonstrate about, that but since I was "Spiritually qualified and willing , they kept me on the job. Nobody else wanted to do it . It is true that Accounts Servants are not chosen for ability or academic qualification .
I believed then, and now, that the accounts should be professionally audited

My experience closely matched yours blues bro.

Although he never even went to high school my father was made accounts servant as soon as the elders arangement came in (1973?).

We had 10 elders and 10 ministerial servants and 10 pioneers, many of whom worked in office jobs yet dad hated accounts but got saddled with it. When he died the job passed on to me - my only inheritance lol.

I believe he was being punished by a particular nasty PO. Dad saw it as suffering for Jehovah. I saw it as a pain in the butt and off loaded it asap.

unc

ps: do you know how much professional auditors charge? - a squillion and they won't sign off on anything dodgy

Midget-Sasquatch

I've done the congregation accounts and its exactly as Blondie detailed.

Having different brothers collect with you would minimize opportunities for collusion. For quite some time, the WTS encouraged that cheques have 2 signatures on them. And as of fall 2005 (in Canada at least), accounts servants are no longer to sign cheques.

jwfacts

I used to do the audit, and eventually deduced that our hall had two accounts. Only one was being reported on with occasionally a few hundred dollars being moved into the other account. I questioned it and said the congregation deserved to know how much was in both accounts. The Secretary was very upset, he felt that if everyone knew how much money we had they would stop donating. i made them read the amount out a couple of times, but I doubt they still do.

Frog

I too always wondered why the congregation read a monthly accounts report and the headquarters did not.

Very valid point as always Blondie :) x

Midget-Sasquatch

Maybe most of you know this already, but each circuit typically has its own charitable status and looks after the donations at the circuit assemblies and special day assemblies. In Canada, you can look at all the information returns from 2000 to 2004 from many registered charities. Hope the following link works:

https://apps.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch/sec/SrchLogin-e;jsessionid=GKsb2XGbfn96K20NtDjb76mrWtfW7F0vChvhKhv8004HhhQgRmml!1308470140

Typing in "Ontario Circuit" in the charity name field will give you alot of them. If you put in "Watch Tower" you get the Canadian Bethel. <---------- must be nice to make over $1 million just in interest.

jgnat

OK, now this gives me chills:

And as of fall 2005 (in Canada at least), accounts servants are no longer to sign cheques.

It is a Generally Accepted Accounting Principle (GAAP) to segregate duties. That is, the guy taking in the money has no say on how the money goes out. GAAP has been around since the 1950's. It took 50 years for the Watchtower society to segregate the duties?

An auditor once explained to me that it is very difficult to verify charitable accounts, as income cannot be attached to a specific service or product. That is, a random and unpredictable amount of money comes in and then the charity spends it. I've experienced the most thorough audit of a charity's accound when one year an auditor sent a letter to ALL CONTRIBUTORS and asked us to verify that we had given the stated amount. Hence, the "two witness" rule for counting the incoming, as Blondie mentioned.

Midget-Sasquatch

It took 150 years for the Watchtower society to segregate the duties?

Well when I was accounts servant, our congregation had it set up it so that every cheque written needed two signatures to be cashed (and only four peope were authorized to do that. I was one.)

Kingdom Hall Accounts Report

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