Dear Parishioners, +JMJ
Canon Law (Church law) requires that once a year there be a financial disclosure to the whole parish. The fiscal year for the Diocese runs July 1-June 30; and the end-of-year reports are due by the end of July. The financial information in this bulletin serves as our annual financial disclosure.
From the balance sheet, you can see that we have about $290,346 in savings. Most of this is invested with the Diocese. $12,533 is earmarked for maintenance, and $6,938 for mission outreach. Some of the money has been earmarked for other large projects as well, e.g., 23,014 collected for Payne’s parking lot. Then in the same balance sheet you can see that the Divine Mercy Vocation Endowment has grown about $5000 over the past year to a total of $105,255. We recently had a Vocation Endowment Fund committee meeting, where we agreed to use some of that interest to cover the cost of the girls’ retreat partially led by Sr. Mary Knuckles, the two boys’ basketball faith events led by Deacon Scott Perry, and the luncheon we will hold for the new Vocation Director of the Diocese – Fr. Phil Smith – who is coming the weekend of September 10.
From the functional statement of activities, you can see the income and expenses of the school and the parish separated out. The first thing to notice is that the total net changes in assets in the far right column at the bottom is $-106,237. Somebody might think that we spent way more than we budgeted. But, in fact, our budget was pretty good this year. The functional statement of activities report only covers what happens within this fiscal year. There are several large projects for which we collected money in the prior fiscal year (especially the bell tower at Antwerp), but the work – and therefore much of the expense – fell into this fiscal year. So the income showed up on last year’s reports, and the expenses on this year’s reports. In this bulletin you can see the list of major maintenance projects from each campus.
Since I’m on the topic of the bell tower at Antwerp, this is a good time to acknowledge that we still have some moisture coming through. The Riley-Martin company did everything that they planned to do; and we were all pretty sure that this would handle the problem. Since the completion of the project, we found more damage, but hopefully one more potential cause – and that is in the crawlspace just above the staircase. There is no moisture barrier in that dead space. We hope that with just a little more expense we can install some insulation that would serve as a moisture barrier, and also install a permanent fan for air circulation.
It is always worth pointing out in our annual disclosure how much the parish subsidizes the school every year. This year we were able to reduce the parish subsidy of the school to $121,032. This is $32,662 less than the prior year. We anticipated the subsidy to be even lower in this report, but there were some extra expenses for which we didn’t budget. We replaced two air-conditioning units and a furnace at the school for a total of $14,850. Then the PTA spent $7,815 on items, and this is money that would’ve been added to the parish savings from the PTA over the last couple of years. At the end of every fiscal year, diocesan law requires auxiliary organizations such as the PTA to turn over any funds greater than $5,000 from their savings. The money goes into the parish savings, but it remains earmarked for PTA purposes. So, once again, the expenses show up in this fiscal year, but the income was prior. So we could easily and accurately say that the actual parish subsidy of the school (taking out the PTA money spent) was $113,217. So that would be about a $40,000 reduction in the subsidy. Much of this is due to increased receipts, which I address below.
One great improvement to note regards to receipts, which increased this year by $58,036 over the prior year. This increase reflects changes we made in the tuition structure, and also our decision to utilize FACTS for tuition collection and management. By the end of the fiscal year, the total outstanding tuition balance was only $311.
So there are some highlights from the financial reports in this bulletin. Please call Dianne Jones if you have any questions about the finances.
On another note, after celebrating Spanish Masses on Thursday evenings for most of the past academic year, I’ve decided – after plenty of consultation, prayer and thought – to have only one Spanish Mass per month on a Thursday evening. This was suggested to me many months ago, and it seems this schedule will be best appreciated by the Hispanic migrants for whom this Mass was established. We will also have a community meal after this monthly Mass. This change in schedule will allow us more easily to schedule finance and pastoral council meetings as they were before on Thursday evenings. Then in the three remaining weeks each month, our three campuses will each have a consistent Thursday morning Mass.
On another note, we got the good news that Bishop Thomas has approved the replacement of the Payne parking lot. Please notice the graph in the bulletin that shows how much has been collected so far, many thanks for these donations. The paving and repairs may be underway as you read this bulletin in an effort to complete the project prior to the beginning of the school year but we still need financial support. Please consider donating in the envelopes provided in the pews.
Finally, many thanks to everybody who helped make the farewell luncheon for Deacon Scott happen; and, once again, thanks so much to everybody for making his stay at our parish so rich!
Have a blessed week!
In cordibus Jesu et Mariae,
Fr. Poggemeyer
