New Unit (Split Units) - Procedural Questions

[gregwanderson]

I don't know if there are official guidelines about how soon you can announce that there will be a change (not what the change is, just the fact that there will be a change) in boundaries or bishoprics. In our stake, they never say anything until one week before they actually tell us what the change is. So is it okay to announce to the members "You need to sign up and complete your tithing settlement before December 18th because that's when we're announcing a boundary change"? You have 30 days, by the way.

As far as when the membership records are moved, I guess that depends on the timing of when the new unit is set up "in the system" at HQ. In our case (in 2009) the new boundaries and Bishoprics were announced on a Sunday and then, by about Thursday, the new ward officially had its own web site at LDS.org without any leaders or members. The new ward had its own computer set up about that time. (The Stake already received the computer before the Bishopric was announced.) Memberships from two existing wards were sent to the new ward. One ward's members were received by Friday and the others were received before the end of the day Saturday. On Sunday (one week after the new boundaries and Bishoprics were announced) everything was in place on MLS. Now, I suppose the process could have been delayed if people on the Stake level (especially clerks) had dragged their feet. And I think clerks from the existing wards had to click something about a boundary change in MLS (but I can't remember what it is because I didn't do that step and it is done so infrequently). In our case, everyone wanted this process to happen as quickly as possible and it did.

The one thing that turned out clunky was processing donations at first in the new ward. We still didn't have our own set of deposit slips and a few other details seemed sketchy one week after the boundary changes were announced. By the end of that month we'd done two or three batches but they didn't appear correctly in our Finance Statement. By the end of the next month everything looked okay and the donations from the first month were correct on the statement. But when we made the switch to CUBS last year a couple of items from that first month our ward existed were changed by HQ and it introduced a discrepancy, which was only recently fixed.

EDIT:

I just thought of another issue (problem). There is always someone who will want to make a final Tithing donation at the last minute (the evening of December 31st, perhaps, which happened a few times in our ward). Whoever receives such a donation and whoever processes such a donation needs to be clear about it. This might be a problem with new bishops and/or new clerks. If I had a vote, I'd still vote for your boundary and bishopric changes to happen after December 31st (including the announcement of those changes). People are just very busy at the end of the year even without having to figure out callings and other logistics. But in January everyone is ready for change (and ready to dig in and do the work necessary for new things).

Another problem we had was that an existing ward was moving to a different building as part of the boundary change. So a lot of physical "stuff" had to either move or be replaced. For example, we had a trailer full of camping equipment for the scouts. Replacing that turned into a problem. When the existing ward moved, the existing Primary presidency took everything from the Primary closet to the new building, including baptism clothing (which nobody realized until the last minute before a baptism). Because the old ward had to set up a new office, I think they got a bunch of "start up funds" that might have been better used for the new ward (which was in dire need of a scout trailer, the contents of a Primary closet, basketballs, etc.). There was even some confusion about distributing copies of the handbooks (because some Bishopric members remained in their callings or had the same callings in new Bishoprics). At any rate, that whole process could have been handled much better if the problems had been anticipated better. And I suppose it would have been easier if the wards had remained in the same building, but there was no way to avoid that. In the end, there may have been some lingering "hard feelings" about who took what and whether it was fair.

[gregwanderson]

A few more thoughts:

I was the ward finance clerk when we had our last boundary change (in 2009) I found out that there would be a change one week before the specifics of the change were announced to everyone. I didn't know if I would still be the finance clerk and I didn't know if I would be in the same ward (or meet in the same building) one week later. So I used that week to double-check all of our financial records and fix any problems. I made sure it was organized well enough that I could hand it all over to someone else (and I pretended like I wasn't even going to meet that person) and it would all be clear to someone else. As it turned out, I did hand it all to someone else and it was all moved to another building. And I was pleased with what I was able to offer.

I also took the time to make hard copies or "PDF print outs" of anything that might be useful to keep in either the new or old ward's locked drawer. I approached it thinking "What if I never get to use this particular computer again? What is on here (and not just in MLS) that is important to have backed up?" I suppose I copied a lot more than I needed to but I also kept it organized so that I could easily destroy what wasn't needed (or, in other words, delete the files… because I didn't use much paper).

It might be nice to give the clerks a "heads up" so that they can make these kinds of preparations now rather than waiting until, say, the week before Christmas to get organized. Also, this time of year is a good time to demand receipts from people who need to be reimbursed. (People understand the need to take care of this stuff before the end of the year.) But it would be especially useful to get this out of the way before ward boundaries are changed.

Another thing that was awkward was the transition of electronic keys to the building. Since "Ward A" was moving to another building, all the keys from "Ward A" were de-activated mid-week following the announcement of boundary/bishopric changes. Those who stayed in the building (many of whom would still have callings in the brand new "Ward B") weren't able to get into the building until the following Sunday when they got their new keys. I know this didn't affect many members but I had legitimate reasons to get into the building before Sunday and my key didn't work anymore. I wish the people programming the locks would have allowed the old keys to remain active until that next Sunday (when people would receive new keys) rather than in the middle of the week.