48th Triennial Budget Narrative

Monty J. Glover
General Grand Master, Cryptic Masons International

Aloha Companions,

This is a simplified budget in that many of the categories are rolled up, such as Travel, Payroll, and Investment Income. I did this to declutter the budget as much as possible. Of note, we are expecting a significant drop in per capita income this triennial due to the loss of membership. Because of that, we expect to have a need to rely on income from the Corporate Foundation Fund (not touching the Corpus). 

Travel has been rolled up, except for the GGM Travel, because I want to be able to provide coverage for authorized travel for any officer without limiting any one officer.  In the past who travels is largely based on availability. Because of this, we need flexibility in the travel budget to put the money where it’s needed. I called out the General Grand Master’s specific travel to mostly assure everyone that I’m not going to spend all the money on my travel. I did give a slight increase in the General Grand Master’s travel budget from the last Triennial Budget but overall the Total Travel Budget is around $15,000 less than in the 47th Triennial Budget. And as has been the case in the past some of the travel funds for the General Grand Master may be used to cover others’ travel if needed.

You will see new line items like Technology in the Budget. We have been moving to increased leverage of Technology to improve communications and get the work of the General Grand Council done. This budget item will be used to fund the on-going fixed expenses of software as well as new hardware that may be needed.

We will be spinning off some of the previous expense categories into programs. For example, the Triennial should be a self-funded program. It may ultimately provide income into the GGC Budget but the income and expenses for that program are handled separately from the operations of the GGC. Same with income-producing items designed to increase the Corporate Foundation (CF),  i.e. OSV, LOC, Veterans Medal, First Responders, and so on. In the past, we had been using GGC monies to fund the creation of these awards and including the costs of shipping and other misc. expenses related to running the program and then recouping those expenses (sometimes not totally) from the sales and the balance of the net income would be placed into the CF. Now as a program all expenses and income related to any of these fundraising projects will remain within the Program and not be commingled with the operations of the GGC. This will allow for cleaner accounting and easier production of Cost Of Goods Sold reports.

Likewise, the Audit expenses for the External Audits will be a non-budget expense. It’s a constitutionally required activity and will be treated as related directly to the General Grand Council Triennial and not the operating budget of a specific General Grand Master and paid for out of the Corporate Foundation.

Having consulted with the Jurisprudence Committee and a review of our record on auditing and financial review, the Board of Trustees approved the retention of a qualified outside Auditing firm for the period of 2014-2020.   

By virtue of Board action, the next General Grand Master will appoint an Audit Committee and receive a recommendation about the processes to be used for a systematic plan for financial reviews and outside audits in accordance with the Constitution and Bylaws of the General Grand Council as well as standard non-profit accounting practices. The Audit will be paid through the use of Corporate Foundation resources. 

In closing, I would like to thank the members of the Budget Committee for their advice and direction in the creation of this Budget.