This weekend, our annual budget report can be found in the bulletin. Below is the letter that accompanies that report.
ONE UPDATE FROM THE ORIGINAL LETTER: Gala will be returning to in-person learning beginning Jan. 25th.
God Bless!
Dear Parish Family,
Continued wishes for a Happy New Year! Thank you for all your prayers & generosity in the Christmas season & throughout the year! Attached with this letter, you will find our annual budget report. This report is meant to help you to see where we have been in the past year as well as providing you with where we hope & forecast ourselves to be in the year ahead. I want to thank David Jaronowski, our recently hired Business Manager, as well as the dedicated members of our parish Finance Council for their work, consultation, discussion, & advising on the putting together of this budget. Their work goes beyond simply helping to compose a budget each year & so I also want to thank them for their constant help & advising regarding the financial status of our parish. Their service is greatly appreciated! I specifically want to take a moment to discuss the new position of Business Manager. In previous years our finances were taken care of by an outside accounting firm. While they did a tremendous job for us, their role was simply to put numbers into the budget & help pay the bills. While David, our new Business Manager will do those functions as well, he will also be on site between both parishes on a weekly basis & will also help in our capital improvement projects, strategizing & planning for the future, & the day to day operations of our parish. The delay in getting the budget to you was not because of any problems or issues, but simply as it took David time to get adjusted & wrap his head around the numbers. The plan is for things to go much smoother the next budget go round & we have already been working to make sure that happens.
Besides thanking David & our Finance Council members, I also want to take some time to thank each & every one of you. I want to thank you for your continued generosity & support of our parish during these most difficult & challenging times. The uncertainty of this time of global pandemic has challenged so many of us in so many ways. I realize that just as we are facing challenges as a parish family in general during these times, so too, so many of you are facing challenges of your own. Though your support of our parish may have been forced to change in the face of these challenges, I want to again thank you for whatever & however you have been able to help support our parish. Thank you too to all who haven’t been able to attend in person, but have watched our Masses & other prayers online & continued your support whether online or through mailing in your offering.
Looking at the budget itself I am not going to go into many specific numbers here. You can see from looking at the budget that our collections are down roughly $30,000 from last year. Much of this is to be expected due to the challenges of our current pandemic. We are hopeful that some of that loss will rebound over the upcoming year, though obviously there is currently so much uncertainty surrounding us at the time. Please know that we are keeping a constant eye on this as well as doing our best to watch & limit any unnecessary spending in these times. Some of the capital projects that we have moved forward on during this time including some needed electrical work in one of the lower rooms of the school building where water had leaked into the electrical room. That work, which was completed back in March, needed to be handled immediately as, obviously, water & electricity do not mix. We are also in the process of looking at replacing some windows in the school building as well as the entrance door to the school/Church. We will also be working on replacing the boiler pump in the DePaul center. It is on its last leg & we want to get that taken care of soon, before the boiler pump decides to quit in the middle of winter.
There is some good news from this time as well. During the early days of the pandemic back in March, the Diocese of Cleveland offered the possibility of grant money to help in the work of parish charitable outreach to those whose lives were affected by the coronavirus pandemic in some way. Thanks to the encouragement of Laura Brown who heads our St. Vincent De Paul Society, we applied for & received a small grant that helped us to continue the great ministry that our society does. On a parish level, we also applied for & received a small PPP loan that helped us not to have to lay off or furlough any staff members during this pandemic time. Also, a note about GALA school as I have heard that a number of people have asked what is going on & how they are handling this time. The head of the school has communicated with me over the summer & their plan is that at least for the time being, to be doing completely virtual learning. They hope to be able to begin a type of hybrid model, providing for those who wish to be in person as well as for those who wish to continue virtual, we will see how things go.
Again, thank you, thank you for your continued generosity & support of our parish family in the ways that you have been able to during these uncertain times. Please know that any & all help & support you can provide is greatly appreciated. I am looking forward as the year goes on to starting to make plans to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our parish! Right now the plan is to welcome our new Bishop, Bishop Edward Malesic, this coming September around the feast of our patron, St. Vincent De Paul, to celebrate Mass with us & kick off our anniversary celebrations. More details will certainly be coming about this as we draw closer. Also, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact either myself or David Jaronowski at the parish office.
Have a blessed week & let’s continue to pray for & support one another!
God’s Blessings,
Fr. John Pfeifer
Pastor