The proposal for a national advisory budget service, which was submitted in a referendum to the member agencies of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, has been approved by a majority of the agencies voting, it was announced today by H.L. Lurie, executive director of the Council. The results of the referendum will be submitted to the Council’s board of directors at a meeting to be held early in May, when the board will consider the steps to be taken and the procedures to be established to develop the type of services most helpful to its member agencies.
The board of directors, at its meeting in Atlanta last January, approved the advisory budget proposal but decided to submit it to the entire membership of the Council in order to give each the opportunity of registering its wishes. Even before the referendum was taken, there was general agreement on the need for expanding the Council’s fact-finding services and broadening their scope. The votes on the referendum, negative as well as affirmative, have supported this view.
A complete report on the referendum to the member agencies, Lurie said, will be made by the board after it canvasses the ballots at its May meeting.
The questions on which member agencies expressed their views on the referendum were based on recommendations made at the Atlanta assembly by the Council’s Committee on the Study of National Budgeting Proposals. After an extended study, this Committee, headed by Jacob Blaustein of Baltimore and William Rosenwald of Greenwich, Conn., proposed the establishment of a national advisory budget service for national and overseas agencies appealing to local communities for support. It recommended that a competent and intensive process of fact-finding, both on programs of service and on financial experience, should be developed under the auspices of a committee of the Council and that this committee, with appropriate sub-committees for special fields, should be responsible for evaluating the information secured in the fact-finding process. The reports and findings of the Committee when established would be made available on an advisory basis to the local communities who wished to use this service in determining their allocations to agencies appealing for support.
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