Pastor's Column
Last weekend I encouraged you via this column to embrace the virtues of Faith, Hope and Courage. My plan was to prepare everyone for the letter that will be mailed out this week with the title Faith, Hope & Courage. On the reverse side of the letter, there is a Financial Snapshot of the parish. When you get a chance to examine it, you will notice that we have been working to keep our expenses down so as to not exceed our income. Our fiscal responsibility however does not properly reflect the financial hardship of the parish at this time.
What the snapshot does not take into account is the deferred invoices over the past seven months due in part to the pandemic nor the much needed fire alarm system, gutters, lights, ice machine, and lawn mower. I felt that it was only fair that you should know about these expenses and take them into account when considering the needs of the parish at this time. As you have heard for over a year, we’ve been planning on installing a new fire alarm system which I believe will be installed in the next few weeks. The cost of that project is $ 33,515.30. The new gutters are needed to help us with the water issues we’ve been having lately. The lights in the parking lot are obviously necessary for safety and the new ice machine must replace the old one as per an order from the health inspector. Those three items together are estimated at approximately $ 7,600.00. I suppose you could add an additional $1,500.00 - $ 2,000.00 for a new lawn mower but as you’ve seen we have asked in the bulletin if anybody out there has a used one they might like to donate that could serve our needs for now. The deferred payments to a couple of our vendors come to approximately $ 21,925.00. After considering all of this our deficit is $ 36,507.30 not a surplus of $ 28,533.00 as stated in the letter.
The good news is that these expenses will be paid out of our general operating account. We won’t have to go to our savings account to make the ends meet. The bad news is obvious. Running the parish as a non-profit operation is a given, but doing so deeply in the red will eventually hurt our programs and services and outreach to the larger community. When the letter comes this week, please give it your serious consideration.
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Tom J. Anastasia