Hello everyone,
Our parish finance council met recently and the following is a summary of what we discussed.
The first item we discussed is that the Diocese of Toledo recently conducted an audit of our parish. This is standard practice whenever a new pastor is assigned to any parish in our diocese. Having first looked at our numbers, the Diocese noticed that our parish is currently financially stable. As such, they did not do a full-blown audit of each of our line items. Instead, they did more of a procedural audit, in which we answered questions about how we handle parish funds, so as to be sure that we operate fully in conformity with tax laws and diocesan protocol. I am glad to inform everyone that the Diocese was very pleased at the end of the audit and did not have any major concerns.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this year’s Annual Catholic Appeal, Divine Mercy’s goal is $28,000. As of March 12, our parish had already reached 80% of that goal, with $22,418 in gifts and pledges. Thank you for what you have already contributed and thank you in advance for helping to get us all the way to the full amount of our goal!
As you have seen in the bulletins every weekend, our Sunday collections have remained over our year-to-date budget for a while. I know I have said this before, but this is wonderful to see, especially because many parishes in our diocese are not so fortunate and are struggling to meet their budget. Thank you!
I mentioned in my last financial update that our overall parish operational expenses for the year have been significantly lower than budgeted due to COVID restrictions. This has continued to be true while the restrictions have been in place. Because we have not been using our facilities as much as normal, our utility expenses were $7000 under budget year-to-date at the end of February. Additionally, some of our facilities have not needed to be cleaned as often as before, so this has saved us money on supplies and labor.
Our liturgical expenses remain well under budget YTD- about $4000 under budget at the end of February. This is because we have not needed to purchase as many hosts or bottles of altar wine during the virus restrictions. Additionally, we have not had many expenses for music because we have not had choirs singing at Mass.
As of the end of February, our Mission Fund had about $1400 and our Building and Maintenance Fund had about $16,000. Thank you to those who have been contributing to our second collections even though we have not been able to do official second collections at Mass.
Overall, not much has changed since my last financial update. I am pleased to say that we are doing very well given the current situation. Although we have not been able to do our usual fundraising events, we have been able to save quite a bit of money because of our less-than-normal operational expenses, and because we have been careful not to take on too many major repairs during this year.
That brings me to one last point. A few months ago, I informed everyone of the status of the rectory basement. As you recall, the brick walls are continually deteriorating and need to be taken care of sometime soon. Because of the scope of the project, we were required to submit the details to the Diocese of Toledo for approval. As of the time of my writing the present article, we have not yet been given official approval to begin. Once we do, I will inform everyone on when this will be done and what the cost will be.
As always, if you have any questions on this information or would like more details, feel free to contact Dianne Jones or myself at the parish office.
Blessings,
Fr. Ammanniti
