First Quarter Financial Report

As you may remember, several weeks ago I published the financial reports for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008. This week, I am required to publish the financial report of the first quarter (18k pdf file) of the current fiscal year, that is July 1st through September 30th. Rather than provide a separate cover letter as I did the last time, my comments are being included in this column.

First, and most importantly, I am very grateful that many of you read my cover letter and listened to my pulpit comments carefully.

As you may remember, I emphasized that we had the loss of some $140,000 income per year with the termination of the lease that the City of Bridgeport had with us for our school building. Ouch.

As you know, over the last several years, our beautiful church has been in need of several expensive repairs and we can thank the dear Lord that that lease was providing the buffer to keep us in repair and solvent.

Further, I noted that our weekly collection falls short some $1200 to $1500 per week, (or some $60,000 per year) over our expenses which have been kept as low as possible already.

We do what we can to save, like utilizing the smaller and less-expensively heated and air conditioned lower church for a significant part of the year, and our staff is volunteer and part-time (and in most cases our part-time employees also volunteer extra time to help keep us afloat, God bless you!).

Nevertheless, and realizing that our economy stinks right now (a technical term I learned in college economics…) I asked you to consider in your charity helping to make up the shortfall by us all doing ‘just a little bit.’

And last week you did. To my delight (and the delight of those we owe money to…) our collection was some $500 greater that it has usually been. I pray that this is not a ‘bump,’ but rather, that you have taken my words to heart and have in your love for St. Patrick’s decided to do ‘just a little bit more.’

We are all very grateful

As you will see if you look at the comparison reports that have been inserted into the bulletin, our financial situation, so dependent on the income from the school, has continued to deteriorate.

We really do have only two options, as I’ve noted before, to increase income and to decrease expenditures. To that end, and knowing what a soft economy we have, I am continuing to work very aggressively to affect the sale of the school building. I absolutely will keep you all ‘in the loop.’ Because of the loss of that income, we have steadily had to dip into our meagre cash savings to meet operating expenses, and last week we reached a ‘milestone’ of sorts: our savings dipped below $100,000. Obviously, that’s a very serious development.

We have a wonderful Finance Council here, whose help has been invaluable. Further, several parishioners have approached me with really fine fund-raising ideas. But most importantly, we need the active participation of each and every one of you.

Our parish will survive and thrive only if everyone gets involved.

So, please, come to Mass, contribute time and treasure as your means allow, and bring a friend or two who may not be participating regularly at Mass. We want them back as friends, as family, and as participants in doing God’s work here in Bridgeport. God bless you!

About the Financial Report

The following file -Click here to download (18k pdf file) - contains eight pages with the following six financial reports:

• STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION - As of 9/30/2008
• COMPARATIVE STATEMENTS OF FINANCIAL POSITION - 9/30/2008 vs. 9/30/2007
• STATEMENT OF ACTIVITIES - For 7/1/2008 through 9/30/2008
• COMPARATIVE STATEMENTS OF ACTIVITIES - For 7/1/2008 through 9/30/2008 vs. 7/1/2007 through 9/30/2007
• STATEMENT OF ACTIVITIES - ACTUAL VERSUS BUDGET - For 7/1/2008 through 9/30/2008
• STATEMENT OF FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES BY NATURAL CLASSIFICATION - For 7/1/2008 through 9/30/2008