Budget

[Guest Mary]

A budget was presented, voted on, and approved.  In the budget is a line item to pay a particular amount to a charity.  Because of an individual donation the amount to be paid to the charity will be less than what was stated in the budget.  Is a vote needed to be taken to pay the lesser amount?  Is a vote needed to be taken to pay any amount?

[Joshua Katz]

Adoption of a budget doesn't approve the payment of amounts listed, unless you have a special rule to the contrary.  Action is needed (from whoever is authorized to take it) to pay any budgeted amounts, and no action is needed to not pay budgeted amounts.  Similarly, you don't need any special action to pay less than what is budgeted - just move to pay the amount you're going to pay.

Incidentally, I don't think the description of the situation is quite right.  An offsetting donation, even if restricted to a particular use, doesn't decrease any expense line, it just increases a revenue line.  If you had budgeted $100 of charitable giving, and someone gives you $20 towards that end, that's a $20 revenue, and the charitable giving expense remains at $100 - you receive the money and still write out a check for $100.