Budgeting for 2026: Staff Time Costs More Than You Think
- Matthew Dillingham
- Sep 23
- 2 min read
When churches consider their budgets, they typically examine salaries, benefits, and payroll taxes. However, there's another hidden cost that doesn't always appear on the spreadsheet: staff time.
Your staff's hours are one of the most expensive resources you have. And yet, they're often treated like an endless, free supply.
Think about it:
A staff member spends 10 hours planning an event.
Another spends 4 hours troubleshooting tech instead of leading ministry.
Meetings run long, soaking up afternoons that could have been spent on outreach.
If you convert those hours into dollars (based on salaries), the true cost becomes clear. Staff time is as much a budget item as food, rent, or utilities.
Ignoring it leads to two problems:
Unseen overspending. Ministries run "over budget" because they're draining staff hours that were never counted.
Burnout. Staff feel the weight of endless demands without leadership understanding the real cost of their time.
The solution? Budget for time, not just money. That means:
Assigning dollar values to hours so you can see where staff are over-invested.
Planning ministries and events with staff capacity in mind.
Using time tracking tools to provide insight into how an employee's time is used during the day. (This should not be a gotcha, but a helpful tool to prevent staff burnout and related issues.)
A church budget is not just a financial plan. It's a stewardship plan for dollars and hours.
At Virtual Executive Pastor, we help churches uncover the true cost of staff time and align it with the mission. Because a healthy budget isn't just about money, it's about the people behind it.
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