Governance Minute: Overseeing Finances: Every Trustee’s Responsibility

Randy Thomann explains that for board members who feel inadequate about tackling finances, there is good news and bad news: The bad: Overseeing finances is every trustee's responsibility and cannot be passed along to colleagues who have a knack for numbers. The good: It's a shared responsibility, and CFOs have an obligation to help by presenting a school's finances in an understandable way. Board members of seminaries and theological schools should ask themselves whether their school is living within its means, and whether resources are being managed in a way that supports the mission.