How Odd is an Audit?

Our Church has a strong sense of financial accountability and stewardship. Members tithe (donate) 10% of their income to the Church. At a local level we have no paid ministers. The tithing funds are used to construct new LDS chapels at a rate of about one new building per day throughout the world; support our worldwide missionary program; support our colleges and universities; construct and maintain our temples and support the administrative staff at church headquarters.

Here in the mission field we have many controls regarding the usage of church funds. We adhere to carefully constructed checks and balances. Once a year a team of church auditors perform a thorough audit of our financials. We have a fleet of 45 cars and trucks and leases on 60 apartments. We provide monthly food allowances for 130 missionaries. We have car repair bills, gas bills, utility bills, cell phone bills, office supplies, training supplies, etc.

All of this is managed by one of our fulltime missionaries. This is the equivalent of an office manager / bookkeeper job in a company with 130 employees! Elder Lamb is our current Financial Secretary. He does a wonderful job of keeping all the bills paid and all the records in order.

This past Sunday we had our annual internal audit. We passed with flying colors! Performing the audit were two volunteers from the Church: David Johnson who is Chief Operating Officer at WaWa (an east coast chain of convenience stores) and Ryan Dixon, a senior accounting manager at Comcast.