BUDGET...REALLY?

Back in the day -- that is way back -- pre-merger, federations expressed concern with the national United Jewish Appeal budget. Vague concerns, usually expressed in hallways and back rooms. With UJA's brilliant Chief Financial Officer, Lee Twersky, we decided to convene a public discussion and review -- and what better place than what was the GA, then truly the annual gathering of 2,500 lay and professional leaders. Those leaders filled a ballroom on a late afternoon. We distributed a 50 page or so Budget in advance and distributed copies to those in attendance. We offered a brief analysis of where UJA invested its resources and the return to the system on that investment. We opened the floor for questions and, as I recall, there were none. The communal leaders there learned that the UJA Budget was premised on full disclosure and the Budget was developed throughout a long annual  process with full lay participation -- and UJA's lay leaders were also federation leaders, almost to a person.

A few years later: (1) UJA was done, merged into what would become JFNA and made to disappear; and (2) the legitimate Budget process that was, was no longer, it, too, has disappeared. And, now, a budget Fugazi is upon us.

I have served on Budget Committees from my first service on a local Chicago Agency Board through the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago the UJA, the CJF, JFNA, UIA, JAFI and a few more. Even Chaired a bunch of them, and, at all levels, always...always...with the best of professional partners at every level. Yes, I was often in the room where it happened. I have been proud of the changes that Budget Chairs at the Jewish Agency like Richie Pearlstone and Jay Sarver implemented to move those Budgets from the opaque to the transparent,  changes that I'm certain current JAFI Budget Chair Beth Leonard, a superstar accountant in her real job, has perpetuated, even further enhanced. 

At my own federation, and, most probably yours, we have had that transparency from long before my time in leadership through the present day and into the future. Great professional leadership and a dedicated and demanding laity require no less. No national or international non-profit that I have seen at work spent/spends as much of its time on budget.

All of the above is but prologue...and leads me to the JFNA Budget just approved. 

First, the Expense and Revenue Budget was presented on 4-1/2 pages --a $48.1 million Budget on 4-1/2 pages. Oh, there was also an accompanying brief Memo from the CEO on the Budget. Nowhere, other than in a $3.1 Million "Provision for Contingency" is there even a suggestion that the federations, the system, are in extremis as a result of the shutdowns dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Budget as presented, as approved, is so opaque that were it presented by another non-profit, it would have been rejected, marked "return to sender." I ask, in all sincerity, how could this Budget in this form and with its lack of substance been submitted to the federations let alone approved with undue haste in the extreme circumstances that confront every community today? How could the JFNA Budget & Finance Committee and, then, the JFNA Board and members proceed as if it's "business as usual" when business is not and may never be "usual" ever again and certainly not in FY 2020/2021.

At the merger and for the first years thereafter, under a succession of Budget and Finance Chairs and two strong Chief Financial Officers and 3 CEOs who came with exceptional federation CEO experiences, the JFNA Budget process was the equal of those cited above. Then, JFNA's Budget was coopted by a CEO with no federation Budget experience, who, with Budget Chairs, if the evidence is to be believed, demonstrated a "leave it to the JFNA professionals" attitude and, as explored on so many of these pages over the years, allowed the annual Budget to be treated as but a "framework;" not one that bound the organization to operate within it -- the organization's revenues began to be treated as an ATM -- just insert your CEO cash card and withdraw funds for whatever purpose, no Board action necessary. Hopefully Board Chair Mark Wilf and CEO Eric Fingerhut have assured that this malpractice will not happen again...emphasis on "hopefully."

And, yet...

At a time of the worst financial calamity to impact on the Jewish communal system -- locally, nationally and worldwide -- with JFNA taking on some distribution of allocated funds, the Budget fails woefully to set forth how JFNA plans to meet the crisis in any substantive manner. As one of my mentors wrote me after reviewing this "budget:"

"No mention of a US Jewish community rescue 'package' to enable federations to provide real value to JCCs, synagogues, etc. What a great national campaign opportunity..."

Someone out there write me, please, and explain to me JFNA's plans for meeting the catastrophic circumstances our institutions now face.

Smart people, lay and professional, worked on this Budget; yet, this thing fails to reflect those smarts. I would suggest that JFNA immediately convene the totality of federation leadership by Zoom or, if safe to do so, in person to develop and approve a Continental Special Campaign. I would even go so far as to suggest that Joel Tauber, who chaired UJA during a significant part of the historic Operation Exodus Campaign, be appointed the Special Campaign Chair. and get on with ther task.

The hour is already late.

Rwexler