At its board meeting June 25, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation approved close to $10.9 million in local, continental and overseas allocations for the fiscal year 2002-03, beginning July 1.
“In the last two budgeting cycles,” according to MJF president Allen L. Samson, “the federation has moved to an overall approach for the allocation process of unrestricted resources. Our primary source of funds is the annual Community Campaign, which closed with an achievement of $7.9 million, compared to $8.2 million last year. The other main source of revenue is the income generated by the unrestricted reserves of the Jewish Community Foundation, the federation’s endowment development program.”
As part of this year’s process, Samson said, a new spending discipline model was adopted for the foundation, which means that less money is available for allocations. The amount for this coming year is $1,755,000 compared to $1,870,000 for the past fiscal year.”
Marci Taxman, co-chair of the federation’s Agency Relations Committee, which reviews all local and continental allocations, said, “The allocations process was more difficult this year because we had less allocable dollars in our pool. But, because of that, I think the community members serving on the allocation panels worked harder than ever to make recommendations based on merit and the needs of the community.”
The federation core operating budget was approved with a three percent reduction in funding over last year. The budget addresses two primary goals of the federation as outlined by its Strategic Renewal Plan.
The first is the necessity of strengthening the organization’s capacity to raise increased funds to meet growing local and overseas needs. The second recognizes the importance of enhancing the federation’s ability to engage more people in the work of the community.
Federation programs and services, which include the Jewish Chaplaincy Program, the Israel Resource Center, The Chronicle and the Coalition for Jewish Learning, all absorbed five percent budget reductions.
Local agencies
In anticipation of less available allocable dollars, funded agencies were asked to submit allocation requests representing 95 percent of their 2001-02 allocations.
Some agencies and their programs were able to maintain their 2001-02 funding levels, including B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, Jewish Community Center’s Health and Well Being program, Jewish Family Services counseling and exceptional needs programs, UW-Madison Hillel, Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, Project Equality, Wisconsin Jewish Conference and Yeshiva Elementary School.
A few agencies and programs were reduced more than the requested five percent — in some cases because the agencies agreed to assume greater reductions in these programs to avoid reductions in other programs. These include: Hillel Academy, JCC Seniors, JFS Older Adults, Jewish Home and Care Center Older Adult Day Care Center and Mashgiach.
Of these cuts, the only one Taxman called “significant” was for the JHCC adult day care program. She said, “We’ve been watching the usage of the program for the past several years, and unfortunately, the numbers weren’t there to justify the expense.” The request for $30,000 to run the program was denied.
In addition, the budget request from Hillel Academy was reduced by $50,000. Taxman explained: “We’ve been watching the school’s census numbers as well, and found that its funding is the highest per capita for any of the day schools. We created a special committee to work with Hillel to study the trends and try to identify areas in which it can grow. Even with the decrease, its per capita funding is still the highest.”
The remainder of agencies/programs received five percent or slightly more than five percent reductions in their allocations. As a result, close to $2.9 million was allocated to local agencies and programs compared to $3.1 million last year.
Allocations to continental agencies were decreased to $114,804 compared to $129,059 last year. Milwaukee’s fair share of national operations provided by United Jewish Communities decreased from $459,000 to $423,400.
The core overseas allocation, which is forwarded by UJC to MJF’s two overseas partners, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel, decreased from $2.3 million to $2.1 million. The remaining elective 10 percent of our overseas allocation that is allocated by our community decreased accordingly, from $250,000 to $225,339. An additional $105,068 was designated by UJC to assist Ethiopian Jewry move out of poverty in Israel and more fully into life there.
Jerry Benjamin, chair of the federation’s Israel and Overseas Needs Committee, explained: “We’ve tried to address the needs of the 100,000 Ethiopian Jews who have made aliyah in recent years. Due to their special needs, it has taken longer for them to become full partners in the Israeli economy.
“To ensure that succeeding generations of Ethiopian Jews will be successful [in Israel], JAFI, JDC and the Government of Israel have launched a comprehensive campaign to address their social and educational needs that we are pleased to be a part of.”
He concurred with Taxman that the budgeting process this year was “expecially difficult.”
He added, “Since the intifada began, Israelis have been under enormous pressure, and, consequently, the dollars we send from our community campaign mean more today than at any other time in recent memory. Even while Israel is under attack, 80,000 olim moved there this year. Each new immigrant has been supported by funds that have been contributed through our allocation process.”
“It’s important to note,” said Richard H. Meyer, federation executive vice president, “that the federation is a multi-faceted organization, and in addition to the unrestricted revenues distributed through the allocations process, the federation provides millions of dollars each year to local Jewish agencies and Jewish causes through other resources, such as special campaign revenues like the Israel NOW and the Israel Emergency Campaigns, agency restricted funds, donor advised funds, charitable trusts and supporting foundations.”
The full budget will be available from the federation this fall.
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