Good evening and thank you for taking the time to attend this presentation. After my remarks, there will be a time for any questions that you might have. I want to know what you are thinking and if you have any suggestions. I really want your input.
Tonight once again, I need to talk about our financial situation. I also need to talk about some major issues facing our parish. Over the past several years, our offertory collections have ranged from $598,486 to $526,755. During the last year, the pandemic has had a substantial negative impact on our offertory donations. From July 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021, we have received $333,505 in offertory donations. At this pace, our offertory donations through the end of the fiscal year, that is, June 30, will be $425,396, more than $54,000 less than last year.
July 1, 2013 – July 30, 2014 $588,523
July 1, 2014 – June 30, 2015 $596,198
July 1, 2015 – June 30, 2016 $568,002
July 1, 2016 – June 30, 2017 $547,963
July 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018 $598,486
July 1, 2018 – June 30, 2019 $583,249
July 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020 $526,755
July 1, 2020 – March 31, 2021 $333,505
(Projected) July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021 $425,396
So far, due to COVID-19, we have a deficit for this fiscal year of $124,396 in our Sunday offertory donations. This does not address other sources of fundraising income, such as the reductions in income for the Fish Fry, St. Mary’s Café, Trivia Nights, etc. Tonight, we are focusing on the Sunday offertory collection, although almost all of our income has been affected by COVID-19.
Had we not had three significant bequests in the last several years, two from former parishioners and one from a non-parishioner, we would not have been able to meet our expenses.
Due to the age of our facilities, especially the church and school, in the last five years, we have had to make several significant repairs and necessary upgrades to our facilities. Some of those repairs and upgrades include:
As long as this list is, it is only a partial list. Looking down the road, we still have quite a few projects that need to get done or that will come due within the next couple of years. A lot of the sidewalks need to be repaired or replaced. You can see that the fence around the rectory is falling down.
We have additional plumbing repairs and upgrades that need to be done, including hot water tanks for the school and Haney Hall that need to be replaced, and we have more work on the piping and steam traps for our heating in the church and school.
Last year, we were planning to replace the carpet in the church. We had set aside over $100,000 for this project, but that money is all gone now; it helped keep us alive during COVID-19. But we still need to replace the carpeting in the church; it’s getting dangerous. We will have to scale back our plans, we won’t be doing any tile, and we cannot afford to make the altar wheelchair accessible as we had planned.
Perhaps my biggest concern is our roofs. This roof here in the Activity Center is over 20 years old; it is coming to the end of its life span. The roof over the school, well, that is well past the end of its life span. We have been able to get by with repairs, and last summer Albert and Kelly did a lot of work up there, but that is just trying to get a little bit more life out of it. The roof on the church is also nearing the end of its life span. In the next five years, we could be spending a couple hundred thousand dollars on roofs.
This gives you a glimpse of where we stand. For many years, we had to prioritize our maintenance and repairs. Many projects had to be postponed, reduced, or eliminated. Unfortunately, those projects are coming due. Until COVID-19, we were doing a pretty good job keeping up with the challenges, but COVID-19 is made that much more difficult.
So what have we done to meet some of these challenges in the new environment we find ourselves?
The following are some of the steps that we have taken in the last year due to our significant decrease in donations. We have reduced parish staff hours. Last summer, most staff positions were either laid off or had their hours dramatically cut. Although we have restored some positions, some changes have been made permanent.
We have been much more proactive in monitoring our heating and cooling. We keep a much closer eye on the boilers and the A/C. Last year, when we were shut down, we shut down the boilers a month early; that saved us over $1,000. We replaced almost all the weather-stripping around doors. Because of some of the upgrades we have made to our boilers and heating system, that system is operating more efficiently than it has in years, saving us money.
As I have already discussed, we have had to delay some improvements, such as the new carpeting in the church.
We have renegotiated the contracts with some of our vendors. Perfectly Neat, our lawn maintenance and snow removal contractor has worked with us to reduce some expenses and to shift some of our expenses to other times of the year.
Before all this started, we were contracting with Trinity Services to provide a full-time maintenance man and a part-time custodian. We did not renew that contract. Although they did work with us to try to reduce expenses, it was still too much. At this time, we are relying mostly on parishioners, both paid and volunteer to provide our maintenance and cleaning needs.
Linda Winecoff now does the cleaning in the Activity Center and in the school, when necessary. I’m sure that some of you have volunteered to help clean the church. Kelly Kellerman, Albert Damitio, and Rick Debellefeuille have been doing a lot of our maintenance, but they are not alone. We have had parishioners paint the exterior windows of the church, repair some tuckpointing on the school, do plumbing repairs, electrical repairs, and more. Without this help, we would not be able to maintain our facilities as well as we have.
With the assistance of the Archdiocese, we recently sold Holy Family Church and property. The proceeds from this sale will go to pay off some of our outstanding expenses with the Archdiocese, some of it going back to Holy Family Parish, and going towards our outstanding mortgage debt. If you recall, when Bishop Hurley renegotiated our debt with the Archdiocese, $3.5 million of debt was set aside. We are not responsible for that debt unless we sell or lease property. If we do sell or lease property, 50% of the proceeds go towards that debt.
Speaking of our mortgage. When we renegotiated our debt, $1.5 million was converted into a 15-year mortgage. We have been making payments of $10,000 a month to pay off that debt. Since the start of COVID-19, we have twice gone to the Archdiocese to request a three-month deferment on our debt payments. The AOD has approved this request both times, giving us a total of six months deferment on our debt payments.
In addition to the help given to us by the Archdiocese, we have also applied for and received a Paycheck Protection Program or PPP loan for $55,700. Right now, we are applying to have that debt forgiven, and I expect that most of it will be forgiven. We are also applying for a second draw from the PPP. This application is still pending,
Now, I want to look at another big area of concern: our school building. Since we had to make the unfortunate decision to close our school, we have been seeking to rent out our building to a charter school. We have had several charter schools look at our facilities, and we had a lot of good feedback. Last year, we were well into negotiations with a charter school, but unfortunately, that fell through due to COVID-19. We are currently in negotiations with another group out of California, and although I am hopeful, we still have a long way to go.
If we cannot get a charter school to lease our facilities, we need to begin thinking about other uses for our facilities. We need to look at all options. For instance, this summer we will be leasing out the first floor of the school to Champions.
Some of you may remember Champions; they are the company that provided the latchkey program in our school. They rented the first floor of our school for two weeks over the Christmas break, for one week over spring break, and they will be renting it for almost the entire summer break. Having Champions helps us in several ways. Not only does it provide some income for the parish, but also it is important that our facilities are used and properly maintained. I also think that it is helpful that when people who are considering renting the school come through, they see it in use, filled with children. It makes it look more appealing. Finally, it is great to hear the sounds of children active in our building again.
With that said, the Finance Council and I are beginning to explore other ideas for using our school, and we are setting up a task force to work on this. If you would like to participate in this task force, please go to www.stmarywayne.org. We want to hear from you.
Another area where we need to hear from you is it comes to volunteers. In the last year, we have been using volunteers more and more. Because of our volunteers, we have been able to save a considerable amount in our budget. Volunteers have helped us with some of our heating, cooling, and electrical repairs. We have reduced janitorial costs by having volunteers take over the cleaning of the church, not to mention the ushers who sanitize the chairs after mass.
Of course, there would be no Outreach Center without volunteers. Volunteers greatly enhance our worship by serving as lectors, ushers, choir members, and extraordinary ordinary ministers of Holy Communion. Without volunteers, we would not have Faith Formation for our children.
We just completed our Lenten Fish Fries, which were very successful, especially under the current circumstances.
Thank you to all who have volunteered at St. Mary, whether you are cleaning the church, helping with the maintenance of our facilities, a part of the St. Mary Café, the Art and Environment Committee who decorate the church or the Fish Fry team, whether you are helping with Armada Blanca, the ECHOS Youth Group, Youth Faith Formation, or you are one of the youths who are helping out, without you, St. Mary could not be here, Thank you for all you do.
Now I want to look at the most significant source of income we have at St. Mary, our Sunday offertory donations. At the beginning of this presentation, I put up a slide that showed our yearly offertory collections from 2014 through 2020. In that time, our offertory has ranged from $598,486 to $526,755. This year we are projected to receive $425,396.
This next slide breaks down our average weekly donations so far this year. This slide only looks at our donations given through Sunday Envelopes and Online Giving. It does not include loose collections, and it does not include donations to special collections such as CSA, the maintenance or cemetery envelopes, or other collections.
From July 1st, 2020, to April 4th, 2021, 435 people have donated a total of $271,614.50 using envelopes or online giving.
This works out to an average of $6,623.74 per week. If you recall from earlier, we need $10,173 a week to meet our budget.
This chart breaks down our average weekly donations. Yes, I know that many people give monthly or even just once a year, but to simplify it, we divided everything out to look at the average weekly giving.
Of the 435 people who donated, 158 people, or 36%, had an average weekly donation of $0 -$5. The average for this step is $2.22 per person per week.
372 people, or 85%, are on one of the first four steps or $0-$30.
Now, let us look at where we would stand if each of us moved up just one step.
If we each moved up just one step, our average weekly donations would move from $6,623.74 to $10,022.53. One small step, by a lot of people, will make a big difference.
Again, these numbers only look at envelopes and online giving. The best, safest way to donate is through online giving. Online giving does not require you to carry cash or write a check. It makes it easier for our staff and volunteers who count, deposit, and record your donations. It reduces the chance of error in recording your donations, making sure you get an accurate statement of your generosity at the end of the year. Online giving allows you to donate not only to the Sunday Offertory but to all of the special collections that we have as well; I often donate to the Priest Pension Fund collection. Finally, it allows you to give regardless of whether or not we are here in church. I have mine set up to automatically debit my checking account every week; I do not have to think about it. If you would like to set up online giving, go to www.stmarywayne.org and click the button that says “St. Mary Online Giving.”
I do want to end on a high note, and believe it or not, that high note is CSA. CSA has been a great success story recently. For the last four years, we have met our CSA goal! Last year 29% of our families participated in CSA. The average parishioner participation in the AOD is only 20-24%. The average donation was $279.60 per family. This resulted in a refund to the parish of over $5,000 from CSA.
In a few weeks, we will be starting our next CSA campaign; some of you may have already received a mailing from the AOD. I look forward to your continued support for another successful campaign.
So, what can I do? If St. Mary is really important to us, we must all ask ourselves this question.
First and foremost, we must all pray. We must pray for our parish and for each other, especially during this current crisis that is affecting all of our families, our friends, our community, nation and world, and our parish.
While we are praying, we must discern. We must discern what we, as parishioners, have to offer in terms of our time, our talent, and our treasure. There will certainly be many opportunities to donate your time and talent, I have already highlighted a number of ways people have used their time and talent to support St. Mary, but tonight I want to ask you to consider your treasure. Going back to the slide that shows where we would be if everyone took just one step up, I would like to ask you to take that next step and see where that takes St. Mary and us.
I want to thank all of you for coming here tonight. I want to thank the Finance Council for their aid, support, and wisdom during this difficult time and their help in putting this presentation together, especially Mike Hurley, who put together the PowerPoint presentation.
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please go to www.stmarywayne.org. There will be a link for you to submit them. The Finance Council and I will do our best to respond to them.