B’nai B’rith’s Board of Governors voted yesterday to restrict 1975 expenditures to an amount approximately equal to last year’s income-in effect, a cutback in its budget. It was the first such reduction since the 1930s. The Board, mindful that income was $750,000 below the organization’s overall $21 million budget last year, adopted a cautious approach for the current year, foregoing increases that would compensate for last year’s inflationary rise.
The current budget, not yet finalized, is likely to be $20.3 million. The Board’s actions yesterday dealt with proposed expenditures for all B’nai B’rith’s national and international activities except these of B’nai B’rith Women and the Anti-Defamation League. In recent decades, B’nai B’rith has shown a steady financial growth, adopting a record budget each succeeding year.
David M. Blumberg, B’nai B’rith president, explained the current budget as “not panic but prudence in a year of economic uncertainty.” The cutbacks, he added, were not a “prediction of gloom” and the “signs are more positive than negative” for restoring the funds at an early date. The Board supported this view by adopting a contingency budget to provide increases by mid-year if funds are available.
Blumberg noted that despite “last year’s recession economy” the combined sources of income for B’nai B’rith’s youth programs-among them local federation and welfare fund allocations-had shown a five percent increase over the preceding year.
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.
