IMPORTANT: UPDATE ON PARISH FINANCES

Living within our means…                                                                                                               September 25, 2020
Managing the resources of a parish is not very different from managing a household budget: often, it comes down to the question “how can we provide what our family needs, given the limited resources that we have?”  In those times when our families have more resources at our disposal, it’s easier to provide those things that our families need and want. But, in those times when resources are scarce, families are often forced to make difficult choices in order to prioritize their spending in order to ensure that they don’t spend more than they’re able to afford.
Our parish and parishes throughout the Diocese are currently experiencing “lean times”.  Over the past few decades, parish registrations, Mass attendance, and contributions have been decreasing.  The effect of parish mergers, the August 2018 grand jury report and more recently COVID – 19 is being felt at each of our parishes.  Donations toward the operation of our parish has decreased significantly over the past few years and in particular since March due to COVID-19.  As a result, our parish expenses are greater than our revenues.
Recently, we had the opportunity to meet with the staff members of our parishes, as well as our Pastoral and Finance Councils.  At these meetings, we presented the reality of our current situation:

• Offertory giving has declined steadily, by $600,000 in the past 5 years, from $2.4 to $1.8 million.  Since March, weekly offertory has declined another 20% on average.  In the past year, total parish revenue including offertory and fundraising totaled $2.0 million.
• Annual operating expenses, including the subsidy the parish provides to St Elizabeth grade school to cover costs not funded by tuition and fundraising, are $2.3 million.
• As you can see, with revenue being less than expenses and with the impact of COVID likely to continue, in order to keep our faith community solvent, we must begin to “live within our means”.
• There are two aspects to the situation which we must consider.  First, I would ask all of you to consider increasing your support of our parish in our weekly offertory. God has a plan for our giving that we need to know and practice as best we can. Second, with the merger of 4 parishes there is always some overlap and duplication of staff and roles.  While some consolidation of staff has occurred in the past year, there are still areas which must be addressed.  As a result, in order to attempt to “live within our means” as a single parish, reductions in the number of staff members will be necessary.

This presents a difficult situation for all of us.  The staff members of our parishes are our friends and our family.  How can we be fair to them while being responsible with respect to the financial limitations of our parish community? Our goal is to honor the contributions that our staff members have made over the years, while continuing to be good stewards of the resources that our faith community is providing to our parishes. 
In our recent meetings with staff and councils, we discussed these issues and how we might address them.    Our commitment is to be equitable to those who have served our parish communities faithfully over the years, while also ensuring that our faith community returns to financial solvency.  As we move forward we will continue to keep you updated.  I humbly request your prayers for me as your Pastor and seeking God’s will in navigating through these difficult times.  Together as a parish family, let us pray for one another that each of us will do the best we can as stewards of God’s gifts that we may grow His Church.

                                                                                                In Jesus’ Love,
                                                                                                Father Zywan