The Conference Council on Finance and Administration, or CCFA, is recommending an apportioned budget of approximately $2.3 million for 2027. This is a decrease of $132,000 from the 2026 apportioned budget of $2.435 million. This continues a multi-year effort to reduce our annual budget request and better align spending with apportionment receipts. This reduction is partially due to a reduction of expenses as well as the reallocation of existing resources.

It is also recommended that the church apportionment rate remain at 13.0% of local church operating income for 2027. This rate results in approximately $2.05 million in apportionment receipts. That is slightly higher than the collections for 2025 of $2.01 million. We have seen an uptick in year-to-date giving as of April 30, 2026, compared to the same point in 2025, and we are hopeful that this trend will continue into 2027.  

With these adjustments, the 2027 budget shortfall is projected to be $253,000. This budget includes another generous gift from the Board of Pensions. They have approved paying for 100% of our conference health insurance costs for 2027, an apportionment budget impact of approximately $213,000.

Budget items related to the developing missional leaders section of the budget were reduced by $62,000. These savings are the result of reallocating existing resources – such as utilizing our ministerial education fund – rather than reducing our investment in these ministries.

The district superintendency budget decreased by $58,000. This reduction is primarily attributed to cost savings from reducing the number of conference superintendents to three. Although the total cost savings is approximately twice that amount, the 2026 budget had already accounted for approximately half of the total savings.

The largest portion of the budget is Conference Support Services. Most of this expense is conference staff salaries. Other substantial expenses include information technology and insurance. Although we have been able to reduce our conference staff salary expense over the past few years with an additional small reduction for 2027 of approximately $17,000, we are experiencing other inflationary pressures, such as higher information technology and insurance costs.

The line item budget can be found below. This pie chart illustrates the programs and ministries that apportioned dollars support from a missional perspective.

Although the Dakotas Conference has been able to sustain its ministries without tapping into conference reserves in prior years, in 2025, $500,000 was transferred from the transitional reserve fund into the conference operating account, and another transfer will likely be required later this year. This was as expected. Despite the use of these funds, sizable reserves remain to cover future budget deficits if needed. However, as stated before, this is not sustainable over the long term.

Because of this, a conference task force was created to provide budget, investment, and spending policy guidance as the Dakotas Conference continues to look for ways to close the continuing budget gap. This task force has developed ideas to increase funding sources, decrease expenses, and reallocate existing resources. A few of those recommendations were included in the 2027 budget – primarily related to reallocating existing resources – with more recommendations likely to be implemented soon. This slide highlights just a few of the many ideas this task force helped develop, and our conference leadership will assess these possibilities and determine the best way forward.

For the full budget report, see the 2026 Annual Conference workbook. If you have any questions about the proposed 2027 budget, please contact Jim Ducker, Dakotas Conference treasurer and executive director of finance and administration.