Adventures in Scheduling We’ve recently had a couple of scheduling meetings, in order to plan our calendar for the next 12 months or so. It’s very useful to bring together staff members, key volunteers, and Fr. Thomas. We find out who’s doing what, when, and in which space. It’s important to budget our time, space and people for maximum community benefit. Several examples come to mind. For instance, Faith Formation programs are often on Wednesday evenings. That’s also when choir rehearsals occur. Another example involves Loaves & Fishes (L&F), one of our ministry partners. To feed … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 18, 2024

About Our Budget - 2 I wrote a couple of weeks ago that our Finance Council approved our budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025 (F25), which began July 1. Last week, I wrote about our revenues. Today, I’ll explore our expenses. One major expense is monthly payments of $10,000 on our million-dollar loan from Catholic Finance Corporation (CFC). We took that loan out in 2016, to install an elevator in the school building ($800,000) and redo the boilers ($200,000). Capital needs are expensive! And they’re necessary . . . we’re also paying CFC about $2000 interest per month on our line of credit, … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 11, 2024

About Our Budget - 1 I wrote a couple of weeks ago that our Finance Council approved our budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025 (F25), which began July 1. Today, I’m sharing some details. We’re projecting $950,000 in revenue for F25. Of that amount, we’re budgeting $231,200 to come in through “Sunday Giving”. That includes envelopes (or their equivalent) for weekend Masses, Holy Days, and Christmas and Easter. That compares with $230,400 for last year, F24—an increase of $800, or about 0.3 per cent. That’s basically negligible—or as an accountant would say, it’s not material. If you do the … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 4, 2024

Thinking About Systems If you were to call 911, what would you expect to happen? I know I’d expect an operator to respond quickly. And if needed, the operator would dispatch someone to my location. Our 911 system is just one example of the way our government serves us. There are many others. They’re on my mind these days, as we approach important elections in November. Yes, sometimes a system breaks down. Our governmental systems are large, complicated, and operated by fallible humans. It’s important for us as citizens to pay attention and hold systems to account. Generations before us … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 28, 2024

Finance Matters St. Matt’s Finance Council met on Thursday, July 11. Members approved a Capitalization Policy and our budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (F25), which began on July 1. (F25 concludes on June 30, 2025.) We adopted the Capitalization Policy as a matter of good financial practice. Our chosen threshold is $5,000. That means that items costing more than $5,000 will be treated as capital assets. They’ll be depreciated for financial statement purposes. Anything less than $5,000 will be considered an expense, paid for out of a given year’s budget. As for our new budget for F25, we project … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 21, 2024

PACE & PRISM (P&P) We’re well into July—or as I sometimes think of it, P&P season. This month, I’m documenting all sorts of things for Catholic Mutual (CM), our insurance company. By doing so, we knock thousands of dollars off our insurance costs each year. PACE refers to personnel items. PRISM refers to facilities. I value the whole process, as CM guidelines are basically good practices we should always be doing. The rebate is like very nice frosting on the operational cake. Speaking of Facilities • A major component of our August 1 report to CM is a lengthy Capital Repair … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 14, 2024

PACE & PRISM (P&P) One of my business administrator colleagues recently commented that the many abbreviations used in our work remind her of growing up as an Army brat. Apparently, our Archdiocese rivals the military in the sheer quantity of abbreviations. As you read on, be warned. So, what’s P&P, you might ask? And you might add, don’t tell me it’s short for PACE & PRISM. I answer: PACE stands for Protecting All Church Employees. PRISM stands for Property Responsibility in Service to Mission. These are programs offered by our insurance company, Catholic Mutual (CM). When … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 7, 2024

Power to the Parish! Our main electric panel has been successfully replaced! A team from Apadana Technologies performed the critical work over two days (June 18-19), taking less time than originally scheduled. This reduced the time when our electric power was shut off—an unavoidable inconvenience to our staff, renters, and ministry partners such as Loaves & Fishes. I want to thank all those who’ve contributed to the success of this project, particularly our many donors. Our fundraising efforts--Lent 2023 to Lent 2024--raised the necessary $109,000 to pay for the electric panel. I also … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – June 30, 2024

AUP (Agreed Upon Procedures) We’re over the hump with our Fiscal Year 2023 AUP. Auditors from CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA) came in a couple of weeks ago, to review all manner of procedures. Most of them have to do with how we handle money, bank accounts, accounting, and so on. The goal is to minimize mistakes and fraud, e.g., by having two or more people handle money. Prior to the onsite visit by the CLA team, we had a few weeks of advance work. Fortunately, much of our accounting is handled by people at PASC, the Parish Accounting Service Center. That helped this “mini-audit” go … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – June 23, 2024