Dear Parishioners,
We recently had our first finance council meeting of the fiscal year (July 1- June 30) and I think it is worthwhile to provide some highlights from the meeting so as to keep everyone updated generally on our parish finances. As Fr. Poggemeyer mentioned in his letter for the year-end financial report, which everyone should have already received, we have been very blessed by the faith and generosity of our parishioners! Although I have only been here for three months, I have already seen this generosity in action. Please know of my gratitude; it takes all of us working together to be good stewards of our resources and to make it possible for our parish to do all that it does!
To start, our Sunday collections are remaining fairly steady. For this fiscal year, we budgeted a little less for our monthly collections based on concerns of how COVID would impact parishioners’ ability to donate. Year-to-date, we have been maintaining our budgeted amount. I am very pleased with this! There are many parishes in our diocese that are not able to meet their Sunday collection budget because of COVID.
However, as I made mention in last weekend’s bulletin, we have not been receiving many donations for what would normally be our second collections. Fortunately, our Building & Maintenance Fund has received some donations, but is still about $500 under budget. Our Missions Fund and our Seminarian Fund have not been receiving donations since March.
Because this year’s budget was finalized during COVID, there were many uncertainties regarding what the school year would look like and how the virus might affect enrollment. We budgeted conservatively, expecting that some parents would prefer to homeschool their kids during the remainder of the COVID restrictions. However, we found the opposite to be the case- our enrollment actually increased! This means that our current student receipts are ~$6000 over what we budgeted. We anticipate this number to increase, because the increased enrollment brings an increase in Ed Choice scholarships (through the State of Ohio).
A few other items have mitigated our expenses during this first quarter. One of them is that our salary expenses are well below budget. With our facilities not being used as much as they usually are, there is no need to be cleaning them as much as we usually do. Another item is that we received a grant from the Diocese of Toledo for our FORMED subscription. This grant gives us a free subscription for two years, and allows us to pay only half price for the third year.
The reduction of our normal expenses has been quite fortuitous for our budget, considering we do not have as many chances to do our normal fundraising events during COVID. Our annual wine tasting event was scheduled for Aug. 29, but was cancelled. We were still able to have our golf outing for the school, but we will have to stay tuned for any future fundraisers.
Overall, we are currently in pretty good shape financially. Year-to-date, our net income is $600 below budget. However, considering that we were expecting to show a bigger deficit due to COVID restrictions and cancellations, I think we are doing fairly well. Further, if we would have been able to hold our wine tasting event, our income would be above budget. Many thanks to everyone in our parish for helping to make our operations possible!
Blessings to you all!
Fr. Ammanniti
