They must have expenses that exceed $1.2 billion a year, or whatever it is they have coming in. The $1.2 billion figure is only a very rough estimate, for the reasons I gave on another thread. But if anything, my guess would be it’s on the conservative side.
How much do they spend each year? We only know that they spend nearly quarter of a billion dollars annually on special pioneers, mirrionaries and circuit overseers. That’s the only figure they give. We don’t know how much other costs total, including bethelite allowances, healthcare and so on, print, online media production, legal fees, building maintenance and repairs, vehicles, travel, and whatever else. It could easily amount to much more than $1.2 billion annually.
I totally agree there are many small indications in their comments in recent years that donations have not met expectations. Lett seemed disappointed that more money was not generated from his appeal. Morris all but implied that cutbacks such as the yearbook were because brothers were not contributing enough. Another GB member (I forget) said any good household head cuts spending to meet the budget. And perhaps most tellingly of all, in one of the leaked videos a speaker made the comment that the cuts programme must continue “unless the level of contributions changes significantly going forward”, or something like that. Which tells us they are disappointed with the amount contributed and still hold out some sort of vague hope that it will magically improve.