What a year it has been. 12 months ago (August 2021) Melbourne had just started its sixth lockdown, which was to last until October 21. 2021 and the year prior were certainly not business as usual years and of course we had concerns about the financial impact COVID may have on the conference. As I write this, 12 months on, I still don’t think we can say it’s business as usual but it’s perhaps a little more normal.
A lot has been happening the last few months. During 2021 the conference board and executive committee made the decision to change our end of financial year date from December 31 to June 30.
To transition this, change financial statements were prepared and audited for the year ended December 2021 and were prepared again for audit as at June 30, 2022. Budgets have been approved for the 2022–23 year and our finance team have been involved in a project with Adventist Technology to update the tithe and offering reporting systems our church treasurers use. These activities have kept our finance team extremely busy during the last few months.
I am pleased to report that despite COVID-19 we were able to generate a surplus for our years operations ended both December 2021 and June 2022. Our conference was blessed to receive some large anonymous tithe donations over the last few months which has ensured our surplus operating results. To those anonymous donors and members, we say thank you for your continued support of the church work in Victoria.
We are experiencing good operating results from our education and aged care companies, however both of these entities have experienced significant challenges over the past year with staffing. These challenges have placed enormous pressure on our company CEOs in needing to manage the staffing shortages and to find creative ways to cover the various roles that have needed to be filled.
The conference has a number of capital development projects currently happening in our schools, Aged Care and conference entities. The two largest projects are Pavilions Stage 2 and additional residential care facilities at AdventCare Nunawading. It has taken months of discussion with banks and lawyers to finalise the finance agreements for these projects. Pavilions Stage 2 is a $52.5 million development consisting of 66 retirement apartments in a multi-story apartment complex. Stage 2 also provides for a swimming pool for resident use. Ironside builders have been engaged for this building contract and have made a great start on site in the last few months. This project is due for completion in October 2023. I am pleased to report that we have sold more than 50 percent of these apartments.
The residential care development project at AdventCare Whitehorse is currently also in Stage 2 of a 3-stage development. Stage 2 will deliver a 3-story residential aged care facility providing 48 new beds with back of house services such as kitchen & laundry. SJ Higgins is the builder and is currently on schedule to complete this development by December 2022. This is a major investment of AdventCare of some $17.6 million and will provide the opportunity to expand its services to the church and wider communities. Stage 3 is a 10-month project which will deliver new admin and reception facilities.
While these development projects are exciting to see happen, we are conscious of our core mission and ensure our financial resources are managed to help achieve that core mission by providing funding for mission & discipleship, resourcing and training, leadership development, and media and communication. Recently the conference board approved our conference budget for 2022–23 which is just over $19 million. While it sounds like a big amount, we have had to be careful how we have budgeted to expend this. In order to balance our budget for this year we have had to cut expenditure in a number of areas and rely on appropriation allocations from our unincorporated entity.
We would love to be able to provide more pastoral staffing to our churches in Victoria, provide additional evangelism grants, provide more resourcing to our local churches but the funds will only stretch so far. We have been encouraged by the faithful giving of tithes of our members during the last couple of years when COVID had such a devastating impact on businesses and families. We can look back and say God has blessed the Victorian Conference through those tough times and we have faith that he will continue to bless in the future.
When we look at the average giving per member, we note the giving per member has had a slow and steady increase. That changed in 2021 with the large anonymous and extraordinary donations received. Just imagine what an extra $100 tithe per member per year could do. That extra $1.1 million could provide more pastors, bible workers and resources to help fulfill our conference vision and mission. As God has blessed the Victorian Conference it is my prayer that He will also bless each of His faithful members. Every year we have financial challenges to face in our conference, but I am reminded that we face them not on our own because with God all things are possible.
Graeme Moffitt
Chief Financial Officer for the Victorian Conference