A program of action to guide Jewish communities in the United States in making major post-war readjustments in their social welfare programs at home, and meeting the unprecedented needs overseas will be formulated at the 14th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, which opens here tomorrow at the Statler Hotel.
More than 1,000 representatives of Jewish communities, national and overseas agencies will attend the four-day gathering, which is the first post-war conference of leaders of Jewish federations and welfare funds in the United States and Canada. Outstanding authorities in the fields of economics, health, social welfare, overseas relief and Palestine will address the delegates on a variety of subjects concerning Jewish life in this country and abroad.
One of the most important decisions facing the delegates will be the question of establishing a national advisory budgeting service, which would be made available to those member agencies that wish to use such a service. The adoption of the budgeting service would put into operation a national method of reviewing the financial requirements of national and overseas agencies.
The plan for national advisory budgeting has been a major issue among leaders of Jewish federations and welfare funds throughout the country. It was twice approved by referendum – by member agencies of the Council in 1941 and by the Board of Director in 1945 – but has also met with strong opposition from a group organized as the “Committee To Oppose National Budgeting.” By definition the national advisory service would be carried on by “a committee acceptable both to the member agencies of the Council and to national and overseas organizations.”
PROPONENTS OF ADVISORY BUDGETING POINT OUT ADVANTAGES OF PLAN
The proponents of the plan point out that it would function very much in the same way as the individual federation budget committees function – as an “impartial and objective group concerned primarily with reaching equitable decisions which would be helpful to fund raising and to local budgetary procedures.” They emphasize that the committee would not take over the responsibility of the agencies in mapping out their programs and that the national overseas agencies would, as heretofore, determine what their budgets should be.
The proposed national advisory budget committee, they point out, “would then revise the budgets and, after objective and thorough study, attempt, together with the national and overseas agencies, to arrive at joint decisions on the amount of funds required to carry out specific programs.” Where joint decisions could not be reached, the committee would advise the welfare funds as to the part of the agency’s budget and program of work which had been agreed upon and would present both sides of the major items of difference.
The proponents of the plan also stipulate that the committee would not set or recommend local quotas. It would only suggest national minimum needs of each national and overseas agency. These national goals would be “recommended, in an advisory way, to the welfare funds,” while each community would have, as heretofore, to decide for itself which national and overseas agencies it wished to include in its welfare fund, and what its allocation to each beneficiary should be.
OPPONENTS OUTLINE REASONS WHY THEY OBJECT TO BUDGET PROPOSAL
Those opposing national advisory budgeting argue that the project as proposed “calls for the appointment of a small committee to determine what American Jews should
The opposition also claims that if national advisory budgeting is adopted, it would eventually result in concentration of authority and power in the Council of Jewish Federation and Welfare Funds a decline in local initiative, a “disintegration of local budget processes,” a lessening of community education and interest in vital programs of national agencies, and a “marked disunity with bitterness on the national and local levels.”
They also charge that national advisory budgeting would lead to increased independent campaigns within the local community, “and to a possible destruction of local welfare funds,” and express fears that national budgeting may sharpen ideological issues “and engender bitterness among national agencies, welfare funds and local adherents of national groups.”
COUNCIL OF JEWISH FEDERATIONS STUDYING BUDGETING PLAN SINCE 1940
The Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, which is an advisory and cooperative body set up by 266 federations, welfare funds and community councils in 234 cities where the major portion of the Jewish population of the United States and Canada resides, has been studying the proposal for national advisory budgeting since 1940, when–at the request of a number of regional groups within the Council–it set up a special committee to deal with the plan. After a careful study, this committee recommended to the Council board that a national advisory budgeting service with facilities for adequate studies of the legitimate needs of national and overseas agencies should be created.
The report and its recommendations were submitted to the General Assembly at Atlanta in 1941, and was followed later by a referendum resulting in a vote of 135 in favor of the proposal and 119 opposed. However, a more limited type of program was inaugurated for the member agencies in place of the full national advisory budgeting service. This limited program involved intensive fact-finding studies by a Budget Research Committee, but did not set up a national board of review to make specific recommendations. This compromise was affected at the Council’s 1942 General Assembly by an agreement with the opposition group.
WAR SITUATION PREVENTED ASSEMBLY FROM TAKING FINAL DECISION
At the 1944 General Assembly a resolution was passed requesting that the subject of national advisory budgeting be re-studied by the Council’s Budget Research Committee and that recommendations be made to the next General Assembly. Subsequently, the report of the Budget Research Committee was presented and reviewed at the meeting of the limited “substitute” Assembly — the only type which wartime transportation facilities would permit — in Cincinnati in February 1945 where an advisory budgeting service was advocated by a majority of those present. When the question was submitted again to all members of the board of directors by referendum, it resulted in 40 voting in favor of national advisory budgeting service and eight opposed.
At the meeting of the Council board in Detroit in June 1945, a large majority again voted its approval of a national advisory budgeting service and decided to submit the question with its recommendations to the member agencies. When the lifting of ODT travel restrictions made it possible to plan an Assembly, it was decided to utilize the procedure which had been agreed upon by previous Assemblies and by the 1942 opposition group.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
