Stewardship in Action: Reflecting on Our Year-End Financial Statement

We are including our year-end financial statement in this week’s bulletin. This is an abbreviated statement: while the totals are for the entire fiscal year, we do not list every category we utilize for income and expenses. The complete statement is several pages long. If you wish to review the entire statement, contact the parish office. As you review the statement, remember we operate on a fiscal year that begins July 1 and ends June 30. 

The first column of numbers is our actual income and expenses for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2022, and ended June 30, 2023. This is provided for comparison purposes for our most recently completed year and our budget for the upcoming year. The second column is the actual income and expenses for our recently completed fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024. The third column is our budget for the current fiscal year, which began July 1, 2024, and will end June 30, 2025. 

Financially, for the year we just completed, it was an excellent year. We had an overall net income that exceeded $500,000. A few items on the income side, in particular, contributed to this. We received a payment of $231,295 as part of the Payroll Protection Program. This was part of the Federal Government’s response to the Covid outbreak. We also had an unrealized gain in our investments of $75,289. Finally, our gifting was greater than we had expected or budgeted for. Our collection categories and gifting to the parish were up for the year. This is a great testament to your generosity and commitment to our parish. 

On the expense side, a mild winter meant snow removal and gas costs were down significantly. Our maintenance expenses for the year were also below what we anticipated. Finally, our wages were down from what we had budgeted since we did not fill some vacancies that we had anticipated we would hire at the beginning of the fiscal year. 

An additional surprise from this past year is that we successfully met our Catholic Services Appeal assessment. This is the first time I am aware of that we did this. Our assessment was $122,400, and we collected $126,190. The balance will be forwarded toward our assessment for next year. If we do not meet our assessment, we need to pay the balance from our operations. 

We hope our generous giving continues and even increases some for the coming year. We did give all our staff a minimum of a 7% pay increase for the coming year. When the recent period of inflation hit, we did not provide a significant increase at that time, so this in part compensates for that. Many of our staff were given a pay increase greater than 7%, which was to align them with what other staff members with similar experience and/or responsibilities are making. As a result, we submitted a deficit budget to the Diocese. Our Parish Finance Council was comfortable with this since we can use our excess funds from the previous fiscal year to cover this deficit. 

Moving forward, we know our expenses will continue to increase. Therefore, we need to explore ways to increase our revenue. While hosting fundraising activities is one way to raise funds, we know that most successful churches focus less on fundraising and instead on stewardship. For long-term sustainability, this is most successful, but it also has Biblical roots and is a disciple's response. 

Again, thank you for supporting our parish this past year. If you have questions or concerns regarding the information presented, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Father John
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YEAR-END FINANCIALS INCOME SPREADSHEET HERE

YEAR-END FINANCIALS EXPENSES SPREADSHEET HERE

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