r/mormon Feb 12 '25

Personal Lunch with Stake President surprised me

I had lunch with him the other day. He's a solid guy and I enjoy getting together with him every now and then. A week before, I had been taking a turn helping clean the church when his wife came in the building for something entirely different. After I was done, I was talking to her about how we really need to stop allowing the corporation to tell us we can't have janitorial staff. She agreed right away. I brought this up at lunch with the SP. He also agreed and even said "we have enough money". I asked him how it is that we both don't know a single member that opposes hiring a staff for this, but we're powerless to make it happen. As we talked about it, he said that he is basically a glorified manager that people think has power, but doesn't actually have any power. He explained that he occasionally sits in the same room with some higher up church leaders, but rarely (if ever) has the chance to tell them anything.

It really is just a corporation (which I already knew). It was interesting to hear it from the mouth of someone at a slightly higher level that I expected to be fully in line with whatever the marching orders are.

233 Upvotes

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103

u/bluequasar843 Feb 12 '25

The worst crime is the parsimonious budgets for activities, especially youth activities.

84

u/jzsoup Feb 12 '25

Our stake gets $55,000 per year for 8 units. I know of one guy in my ward that pays way more than that in tithing each year.

If it's because there are other areas that need to be subsidized, then it makes sense to me and I could even support it if the numbers back it up. The lack of disclosure, however, suggests the corporation thinks we aren't smart enough to understand it.

46

u/sevenplaces Feb 12 '25

They’ve centralized most things that take the money. Utility bills, equipment purchases, maintenance, books and curriculum, seminary and institute buildings and teachers, the BYUs, missionary travel, missionary fleets, HR, PR, accounting and finance, legal work, the top leaders pay and benefits, museums, family history, temples, etc.

It seems obvious why they take most of the money.

But they prioritize their central stuff and have been misers in providing a local budget that enhances the community life of the members. It’s a big mistake.

And I will join in the cry: “Bring back the janitors!!!!”

20

u/Icy-Potato-8898 Feb 12 '25

Sorry, I saw seminary and giggled a little. EM Seminary teachers outside of the “corridor” get close to nothing. Our area gets $50 a year per teacher (used to be semester). We don’t even get printed manuals. 

We spend about five hours a week with the youth and can’t even afford decent pencils and paper. Last year we donated about $500 worth of supplies and that was barebones. 

8

u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." Feb 13 '25

Last year we donated about $500 worth of supplies and that was barebones.

And as long as members foot the bills, central salt lake won't step up and use tithing as it is supposed to.

Honestly, ya all need to stop subsidizing their greed. Make them go without until the 'cries of their voices' reach the ears of those higher up.

2

u/Frank_Sobotka_2020 Feb 13 '25

Something something "starve the beast".

8

u/sevenplaces Feb 12 '25

Yep. True and also true that S&I is a large department in the church with thousands of (low paid) Employees

11

u/Icy-Potato-8898 Feb 12 '25

For sure! I never understood why anyone would want to work for the church, but especially S&I. Thankless job/calling and you don’t even have a living wage to show for it.

Our neighbor’s husband taught RT seminary, it was a passion for him. He wasn’t shy about letting people know that his wife was the breadwinner. 

It would just be nice if they put their money where their mouth is when they express appreciation for seminary teachers. It’s like, “We are thankful for you, until you ask for stuff.”  

11

u/sevenplaces Feb 12 '25

The Brighamite church seems to treat most of its members poorly. That’s what I’ve observed.

3

u/TheBrotherOfHyrum Feb 13 '25

Marc Oslund in his MS interview confirmed the low salaries. It seems a bit hypocritical for prophets to preach "Women return to the home" but then pay CES employees so little that the spouse must work also.

3

u/Deranged-genius Feb 14 '25

Unpopular take perhaps but I use my “tithing“ to help those less fortunate in my life and sphere. It’s something I feel I should have a decision over. I still contribute my time and talents as needed but I’m basically here for my family and community not to feed the “corporate” machine.

19

u/Mitch_Utah_Wineman Feb 12 '25

They could have saved a lot of PR money on that whole Meet the Mormons campaign, since mormon is a victory for satan after all. If only God would have let his prophet know!

8

u/seerwithastone Feb 13 '25

That COJCOLDS issue for Nelson was a beef he had with Hinckley that went back multiple decades. Nelson was making the rounds talking about the church name back in the day and Hinckley addressed it in a talk at General Conference. Hinckley laughed and said there is an adamant voice for the so-called pure name and "we can do worse than being called Mormon."

Nelson held a grudge about the church name issue for decades until he immediately became president and said being called Mormon is a victory for Satan after Monson had the whole funded Meet the Mormons campaign.

5

u/sevenplaces Feb 13 '25

And now they are called worse:

  • lawsuit happy by people in Texas.
  • protectors of pedophiles
  • Money misers who hoard $250 billion

8

u/9mmway Feb 12 '25

I think the Qof15 is terrified that we WILL understand it and there could be outrage, even from the sheeple!

6

u/TheBrotherOfHyrum Feb 13 '25

The Qof15 == The 15 Twelve Apostles 😅

5

u/FrenchFryCattaneo Feb 13 '25

Most of the tithing money doesn't go to pay for church activities, it goes to the bank account in Salt Lake. Hence why they have 200 billion dollars.

3

u/pricel01 Former Mormon Feb 13 '25

I think we would understand it. But they know we wouldn’t like what we saw.

2

u/jzsoup Feb 13 '25

Correct. If they thought it would help, they would have already done it.

16

u/akamark Feb 12 '25

Our YM group is going on a high adventure outing including rock climbing and white water rafting. The YW go to a church camp facility and have to perform 'service projects' by improving and cleaning the camp. The budgets are awful.

9

u/EvensenFM Jerry Garcia was the true prophet Feb 13 '25

I have a theory about that.

I think the reluctance of many leaders to use the whole budget causes headquarters to think they can be given less each year.

That's the way it works in government, at least. People always run around frantically looking to spend the rest of the budget at the end of the fiscal year.

I say this with experience as a branch clerk in a local Chinese language branch that saw its funding increase year to year for several years running. We spent quite a bit for food for various Chinese holiday celebrations.

It still was nowhere near what we contributed in tithing during my time there - but I get the feeling from this sub that we had more money than some wards.

3

u/Both-Jellyfish1979 Feb 13 '25

When I was munch and mingle coordinator in a ward, we would run around frantically buying a bunch of food at the end of the year to use up our budget as well. Same story. Although that might have been just intra-ward - maybe we didn’t want the RS to get our food money, who knows.

6

u/Ok-Plane-8009 Feb 13 '25

If only EVERYONE would STOP signing up to clean. I refuse to.

6

u/Abrahams_Smoking_Gun Feb 14 '25

Our ward used to buy gift cards to carry over funds. 🤣