Annual Financial Report – August, 2009

 

They devoted themselves to the Apostles instruction and the communal life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…Those who believed shared all things in common; they would sell their property and goods, dividing everything on the basis of each one’s needs…Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.  (Acts 2:42-47)

 

            On this one occasion again this year, it is my responsibility to take time to communicate with you in my capacity here as the one who has been entrusted the chair at the head of the table, so to speak; to provide you an accounting of our material well-being, and to invite you to join me in embracing ownership of it and responsibility for it.

 

             As we gather this weekend for prayer, I know that we do so this year as we did last year amid some of the most economically difficult times that most of us have seen.  I know that many among us are reeling from the loss of a job or from other causes for worry about your own financial security.  I know that we gather in difficult times.  As you well know, I hope, from the Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Finance Council speakers who spoke to you last weekend and from the letter you received from them this past week, our Parish, too, is faced with significant financial challenges right now.

 

            This is all-the-more why, in speaking with you about the material well-being of our Parish, I invite us all to make our self-understanding regarding our finances that of a family of faith.  This is what we are!  And, I invite us to commit ourselves once again to the belief that family takes care of family when times are tough.  This above all, is what I invite us to do – to be family – to share each other’s burden – to each do what we each truly can – to each give as much as we absolutely can.

 

            In this weekend’s bulletin, you will find a detailed accounting of our financial situation for the Fiscal Year that ended June 30, 2009.  If anyone has any specific questions regarding that financial statement, I wholeheartedly welcome any opportunity to talk with you about them.  Please feel free to call me or to come to see me.  In general, last fiscal year turned out well.  Primarily due to the monthly burden of our debt obligations, we began the last fiscal year with the anticipation of a $70,000 operating deficit which would have to have been compensated for by funds from our  Christmas Club for Debt Reduction.  In the end, we were able to operate in the black by a margin of $13,000.  Three factors made that possible.  They are mentioned and explained in the letter that you received in the mail this past week.  I cannot guarantee that they are repeatable this year.

 

Loudly and clearly this weekend, though, I first want to say thank you so much to those among us who made our solvency last year possible and who thereby made possible all the good that was done here with those dollars over the past – the ministry, the worship, the education, the service, the community-building, the outreach, all of the Ministries and Services you see listed on the front of the bulletin each week.  Thank you to those among us who supported that happening!

 

The year we have just begun, however, does not look as rosy.  When you take the current rate of contribution to the Sunday Offering, the current rate of contribution to the Christmas Club for Debt Reduction, and the current rate of tuition for school and PSR (our only four consistent and reliable sources of revenue), and you compare them to the combination of our operating costs and the cost of our debt obligation each month, this year brings with it a forecasted operating deficit of $150,000.  This is in addition to the $450,000 worth of roof replacements and fire alarm system replacement which we have recently learned that we have to undertake.  This is the reason for the six-week communications effort about these matters which we began with you last week. 

 

I beg your patient understanding if you get tired of hearing about these things.  But I hope that you might understand that it is absolutely essential that we do everything we can to make certain that every parishioner has heard this information, that every parishioner understands the situation, and that every parishioner hears and is invited to come to believe that our Parish’s wellbeing depends on you.  I ask you to please take the information seriously and to reflect on it prayerfully.

 

So, this weekend I ask your prayerful attention to two things:

 

1)  As we face the challenges that are before us, I ask you to notice that on the Annual Financial Report inserted in today’s bulletin there is also a reporting to the penny of every asset which the Parish holds– both restricted funds and general funds.  As you examine it, please be aware that restricted funds are monies that were donated for a specific purpose.  One example would be the 25th Anniversary Auction funds which were given for the support of our two educational programs for children -- the full-time school and the PSR.  Another example would be the Fish Fry funds which, as we have published year after year from the outset, are allocated to the eventual completion of the interior of our Church and the expansion of parking if, in the end, we deem that necessary.  Those funds were given for those purposes and they cannot be used for anything else.  They cannot be reallocated to another purpose without revisiting the wishes of each of those donors.

 

             I also ask you to consider that when it comes to what is left, the general fund savings available to pay for repairs and to keep us afloat day-in and day-out, our Parish has only $400,000 in savings.  I know that sounds like a lot of money to any individual one of us.  However, it is really a precariously small amount if you consider the fact that last year on average it cost us $208,000 a month just to exist here and do all that we do.  And, I do not believe we are living with fluff.   I don’t know whose job we would want to eliminate.   I don't know whose responsibilities we would want to streamline.  I don't know what Ministry or Service we would want to cut back on.  And our rate of tuition already is and has been for some time the highest rate in the area.

 

The recommendation of our Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Finance Council going forward, which you will hear more about in the coming weeks, is to expand the scope of our Christmas Club for Debt Reduction Fund so that it now be aimed not only debt reduction but also at paying for the major repairs that we have to make in the next two years, beginning to prepare for eventual completing the interior of the Church someday along with the Fish Fry revenue, and storing up a better safety net of savings to ensure the Parish’s viability for the long term.

 

As you know from the letter you received, last year 66% of us either gave $0 or an amount less than $2 per week in support of the Parish’s wellbeing.  Additionally, since we began it in October of 2007, only 417 households have supported our Christmas Club effort for debt reduction.

 

I say this with the utmost respect and I hope it will be received that way: if this does not change, we will go broke!

 

Besides it not being fair to each another, we literally cannot afford for anyone to sit back and think that someone else will give enough to cover the need.  The need is too big now!  Each of us needs to do whatever we each absolutely can.   We make sacrifices for our families because we love them.  I am asking you today to love your Parish, and to be willing to sacrifice for her.

 

2)  Because things are as tight as they are for all of us in our own homes and families, I again urge everyone to do absolutely everything you can to avail us of the opportunities that exist for us to access so-called free revenue.

 

a) I am speaking of making use of the Shop for our Schools Certificates which are available every Sunday as you come and go from Mass.  I will do everything I can to increase their availability at every Mass and to make the process as user-friendly as possible.  These certificates spend just like cash and in the same value as cash for you everywhere from grocery stores, to department stores, to gas stations, to restaurants, to movie theaters, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, and on and on.  This costs you nothing more than you already spend on your everyday life.  All you need to do is make your purchases with certificate cards instead of cash.  Our school families alone generated almost $60,000 in revenue this way last year.  Imagine how this could benefit our Parish if everyone participated.

 

            b) I also encourage you yet again to investigate the possibility of matching funds which may be available through your employer.  Please remember that many employers, the Boeing Corporation and others, will match a portion of charitable contributions made by their retired employees as well.  They do this as part of their Corporate Mission to give back to the communities in which they do business.  If you are employed somewhere where you feel obliged or encouraged to support United Way, I invite you to direct that your United Way contribution be allocated to benefit our parish or our school.  Information is available in my bulletin column again today about how to do that.

 

c) Finally, as I have been meeting with various groups of Parishioners at their organizational meetings during these past weeks, several have mentioned that they have every intention of supporting the Parish financially but that in the chaos of Sunday morning they forget their checkbook or can’t find their contribution envelopes.  For those who do your banking online, I invite you to consider setting up the Parish as one of your automatic monthly payments. I'm reluctant to encourage that because, at least liturgically, I know the significant value there is for us to physically be about the act of giving when we gather for worship.  However, our circumstances are dire and, I suppose, even St. Paul would encourage us to be resourceful!  If you need information about how to set up elecronic giving, please call the Parish Office.

 

I know these are difficult and challenging times.  To those among us who are hurting, I promise you that we are here for you in whatever way we can be.  Please do not be too inhibited or too embarrassed to ask.  To those among us who are blessed enough to be secure even in the midst of these uncertain times, I humbly ask you to please join me in my personal commitment to prayerfully consider whether we could do more.   We are a family of faith!  Families take care of family in hard times!  Please join me in doing that for each other.  Let’s see each other through.  

 

                                                                         Blessings to you and your family!

                                                                         Reverend John A. Brockland, JCL

                                                                         Pastor 

 

 

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STS. JOACHIM & ANN PARISH FINANCIAL REPORT

Fiscal Year: July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009