Saint John has had a banner year when it comes to our mission, our support of the community, and our growth of programs. The only way we have been able to successfully execute the new efforts along with our normal whirlwind of functions and activities is due to the entire Parish Family’s active involvement, including the continued generosity of all of our parishioners. In the interest of complete transparency and collaboration, I wanted to provide you with the details from the past year’s financial operations. This week, we will discuss last year’s expenses and provide insight into our brand-new budget process for the upcoming year.
The breadth and depth of Saint John’s missionary, ministerial, liturgical, operational and functional environment is truly awe inspiring. We literally support tens of thousands of people in our Parish Family and the local community with the efforts of our volunteers, staff, and clergy. The overall spending on all these good works can be seen as the Expenses of the parish. The Expenses, which are paid via our Offertory income (from last week) as well as all the various other income mechanisms the church has, allow us to see exactly how much we are doing as a community, and where we are growing.
For Fiscal Year 2015, running from July, 2014, to June, 2015, our overall expenses to support these efforts was $3,014,056.13. This is certainly a milestone year. Not only have we become a $3 million operations for the first time in our history, but the focus on major support efforts for the community has never been larger, creating a 9% increase over FY2014. At the same time, we have created several efficiencies to ensure the gifts you bestow on our parish are used for the Mission of Saint John. This increase of expenses illustrates the growth of our parish in several ways. Here are a few highlights:
- Capital Repairs and Improvements due to last summer’s extensive issues with damage and cleanup totaled over $526,000. This includes the priorities that the Buildings and Ground Council agreed for life safety for our Parish Family, including brand new fire systems in both the Church and the Parish Life Center (PLC) as well as new air conditioning systems and cleaning in both buildings to ensure comfortable and healthy air flow.
- Providing over $120,000 in tuition assistance for the youth of our parish to attend Catholic elementary, middle and high schools in the area who need support in order to pay for such an education.
- Ensured the upgrade to the Casa Maria Soup Kitchen in Immokalee with over $40,000 in direct support via generous donations.
- Begun “Green” initiative for our church, including new Smart Meter and the replacement of our lighting systems with LED, which will conserve power and lessen the heat from lights, which will provide a return on investment in less than three months due to the decrease in our power bill.
- Our salary cost is only 25% of our total expenses, a very small percentage compared to most churches, where the normal amount is between 40% and 50%.
As we have entered into this new era for Saint John, with increasing programs for our Parish Family and the new Life Center’s worth of activities, we have instituted a new budgetary process. This new process begins with redefining how we manage our income and expenses, including a new chart of accounts. A chart of accounts is a created list of the accounts used by an organization to define each class of items for which money is spent or received. Our new chart of accounts is tailored towards the organizational structure and programs of Saint John, with the top levels being: Pastoral, Liturgical, Operations, Religious Education, and Family Mission. All functions of this church fall into one of these categories and will be easily traceable to the specific use of the funds provided for it purpose. For the first time ever at Saint John, the staff and councils have created monthly budgets to ensure we know what we are spending and why we are doing it. You will see this change in upcoming bulletins in the fact that the “Weekly Budget” in the Collection Summary will be modified based on those budgets. You will be able to see how we are doing every week in real-time.
We are anticipating continued growth in our expenses, similar to our income, due to our future plans, so please stay tuned for even more details on new and renewed programs and events that will showcase our focus To Know, To Love, and To Serve God, in His Church and Our Community.