Sabbatical

I learned just before the May issue of The Messenger went to press that the rector was going to be going on vacation/sabbatical in mid-May. As Lou explained in his page-one essay in the newsletter, it is conventional to offer rectors a periodical sabbatical. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to get rectors to take sabbaticals due them. That said, one has to wonder why parishioners were given less than two week’s notice that the rector was about to disappear for three months. I can think of no explanation for such short notice, which seems less than courteous.

If I were not shocked at Lou’s going on sabbatical, I was shocked at the summer schedule he has chosen to use over the summer. The Rite I, 8 o’clock said Eucharist is not only a longstanding St. Paul’s tradition, it is a tradition throughout The Episcopal Church. A number of longstanding parishioners attend this service, and it seems insensitive to eliminate this service with no warning or consultation with the affected congregation. (But this is the way the most welcoming congregation in the South Hills for all generations operates, I guess. Well, maybe not for the older generation who make up most of the 8 o’clock congregation.) The suggestion that 8 o’clock parishioners can attend the Wednesday midday service is ludicrous and insulting.

In the past, the two principal services have been combined in the summer, which most people saw as a reasonable strategy. Combining the services has many advantages:

• It reduces the clergy workload, even if the 8 o’clock service is retained.
• It reduces the workload of laypeople—acolytes, readers, etc.
• Because attendance falls off in the summer, combining the services yields a single, well-attended service, rather than two poorly attended ones.
• The congregations for the 8:45 and 10:45 services, which have even fewer members in common than formerly, could get acquainted with one another. I have heard more than one complaint from 10:45 attendees that they know no one who attends at 8:45. Since I don’t know anyone who attends the 8:45 service myself, I have no idea what those people think.
• Time and effort could be saved in the production of bulletins.
• Members of the 8:45 service could be exposed to a more conventional Episcopal service. They might even learn to use the prayer book and hymnal. (There is no need for a program containing the entire service.)
• A single principal service could be scheduled to let everyone finish church long before noon.

Michelle health is less than excellent, and combining the two principal services would be particularly helpful to her. Were she to change Lou’s scheme in his absence, I think she would have substantial support from parishioners. Lou, of course, would not be pleased.

As if being saddled with a dysfunctional schedule were not enough, I have learned that $10,000 received from the movie company that filmed at St. Paul’s was given by the Vestry to Lou for his sabbatical. (Additional money was given to the Nursery School, which had to cancel school for the filming.) I don’t know if this was accounted for in the annual report—I don’t have my copy handy—but it surely was not clearly indicated. Many parishioners thought that money from the movie would help us balance our budget, which always seems to be in need of a few more dollars. Will these same parishioners be pleased to learn that the money has gone to enriching the rector?

Update, 5/13/2014, 7:00 PM. On reflection, the $10,000 given to Lou may not be out-of-line. Churches often pay for education for priests on sabbatical. Responsible churches also create a fund for the purpose to which they add every year. St. Paul’s had not done that, though I understand that they plan to do so in the future. The annual report—I found a copy in my files—indicates a $10,000 contribution to the Sabbatical Fund last year.

What I could not find in the annual report is any entry for the money earned by the church from The Fault in Our Stars. If the revenue is supposed to be the “contribution” to the Sabbatical Fund, it appears that the income is being obscured in order to avoid its being considered an operating expense for purposes of diocesan assessment.

State of the Parish

I attended Adult Forum yesterday morning. This had been described on the parish Web site and elsewhere as a “State of the Parish Meeting,” which sounded interesting. I failed to read the fine print, however, which indicated that the discussion was largely to be about financial matters:

State of the Parish Meeting

Please join us this Sunday, January 8 between the 8:45 and 10:45 services to review where we stand financially and address questions and comments from the congregation.

That said, the presentation, by Bob Johnston, with the help of PowerPoint slides, was both helpful and encouraging.

For those who missed the presentation, here are some highlights:

• We enter 2012 debt free.
• 2011 ended with a $7,000 surplus.
• Although more pledges have been received since the last report, the stewardship campaign did not reach its $650,000 goal. (Current pledges were stated as about $581,000.)
• Present estimates show a $25,000 shortfall in 2012, though the intent is to have a balanced budget this year.
• The presentation only involved the operating budget, but several off-budget items have been moved into the operating budget. (This improves transparency in the long-run, but made the numbers presented a bit harder to put into perspective.) In response to a question, Bob admitted that this would increase our diocesan assessment slightly.

In response to a question from the floor, Bob said that the capital campaign had pledges of $660,225, with about $90,000 already collected. Exactly how the money will be spent has not been decided, but Bob suggested that a committee would probably be formed for the purpose.

Helpfully, Bob sent me a copy of his presentation, which you can see here. Note that the slides in the appendix were not shown yesterday.

As you will see from Bob’s slides, the full financial accounting of the sort presented in the annual report was not available yesterday. I asked if we would have a session before the annual meeting in which those who were interested could ask questions about the parish’s financials. Bob didn’t have a problem with this—we have had such a meeting in the past, which avoided long financial discussions at the annual meeting. Lou, however, wanted to have such a meeting after the annual meeting. Of course, last year, we avoided discussion of financial issues by Lou’s arbitrarily cutting off debate at the annual meeting. I hope that does not happen again.

Safety Last

For about a month, I have noticed that the down light on one of the lanterns at the crossing was not functioning. Today, I saw that one of the bulbs in the body of the same lantern was not working either. This fixture is especially important, as it is one of two that illuminate the altar, where the most important action of a Eucharist service takes place. How long, I had been thinking, was it going to take to change a couple of light bulbs?

Before church this morning, I happened to see Vladimir in the kitchen. He is usually the person to see to take care of minor maintenance issues, so I approached him and explained the problem, assuming that he was unaware of it. My assumption was wrong. What he told me took a little time to sink in, partly because what he was saying was hard to believe, though, admittedly, Vlad’s Russian accent didn’t help.

Here is Vlad’s story: He knew about the down light and had determined that the problem was not that the bulb was burned out or that no replacement was at hand. Instead, there apparently was a wiring problem. At this point, I asked if we had called an electrician. He explained that he had brought this to the attention of the junior warden, Carol Delfino, and Carol was looking for a source of funds to pay an electrician. I failed to ask how long this search had been ongoing.

At this point, I was livid. Were we going to risk burning down the building because we could not afford to engage an electrician? (A few years ago, a lantern in the chancel sparked in the middle of a service and went dark. It had to be rewired, and we were told that the fault was a fire hazard.) Has anyone considered turning off the altar lanterns until we identify the source of the problem? Have we inaugurated a moratorium on maintenance in order to expand the punch list for the capital campaign? Is this worth risking a fire? Perhaps the money contributed to the Salary Restoration Fund should have been given instead to the Property Fund.

I no longer feel safe in the church.

Sangria & Sliders

I attended the Sangria & Sliders event at St. Paul’s this afternoon. It being very hot, the event was held in the lounge, rather than in the lounge and outdoors. That was probably just as well. Other items were available, but the main food provided included dinner-roll-sized hamburgers, sandwiches of pulled-pork or chicken salad, and, of course sangria. Millie Ryan and her husband Gary were responsible for the food, which was very good.

The event was part of the capital campaign, supposedly an opportunity to hear about the campaign and to comment on it. Apparently other gatherings have been held with select parishioners. I was not selected. My guess is that this event was designed for people like me who were not invited to private meetings but still might be interested in what is being planned. (No one has explained this, so I may be completely wrong.)

A tri-fold brochure was distributed, whose cover can be seen at the left. The entire brochure can be seen here. The brochure doesn’t offer much more than parishioners have been told so far, but Lou’s presentation did give more details.

The official kickoff event for the capital campaign will be October 15, though some people will be solicited for big contributions before then. The celebration for the completion of the campaign will be December 4. Pledges will be sought in parallel with the annual stewardship campaign, though Lou said that the stewardship campaign comes first—no one should reduce a pledge to the stewardship campaign to contribute to the capital campaign. Pledges to the capital campaign will generally be fulfilled over a three-year period.

In the question-and-answer period, air conditioning the church again proved controversial. I asked if the job could really be done for $200,000 and was told yes, that cool air would be piped up through the floor. Some people argued that air conditioning is not needed. Lou, however, said that he thought air conditioning was the most important part of the campaign, that younger people expect a church to be air conditioned. Having church attendance go down in the summer is not a good thing, he added. I’m not sure that air conditioning will keep up attendance in the summer—people do go on vacation—but, basically, I think Lou is right.

I said that parishioners should be given a list of what the $250,000 Property Maintenance Fund was intended to finance. Lou tried to duck this one, saying that unforeseen maintenance needs could not be predicted. I argued that much of what is in the campaign is deferred maintenance that should be funded in our annual budget. I asked when we will begin doing that, and was told that we simply have not had the money in recent years, but we will try to budget adequately for maintenance sometime in the future. What I didn’t say is that if we haven’t had sufficient funds to maintain our physical plant, we should have found the money elsewhere in the budget. If I’m not mistaken, St. Paul’s has a smaller congregation and a larger staff than it has ever had in the nearly quarter century I’ve been at St. Paul’s.

Several comments were made about the $50,000 overhead of the campaign. Lisa Brown said she has been impressed with the woman from the Episcopal Church Foundation who has been working with the church. (ECF gets $30,000 for its assistance.) $6,000 is allocated to “miscellaneous expenses,” including postage and celebrations. Also included in the overhead is $14,000 for the feasibility study done last year. This is confusing to me, as that money was taken out of the Property Fund. If this money is being put back in the property fund, it is funding another $14,000 in maintenance. This needs to be clarified.

I want to mention a couple of specific projects. Lou, for the first time in my memory, suggested that an automatic door opener would be installed on the handicapped restroom. I first identified a problem with the handicapped restroom door more than a year ago. I hope we do put an automatic door opener on the facility, but I would like to see this commitment in black and white.

Finally, I asked about the plan to achieve handicapped access in the front of the church by eliminating the front steps. I said that parishioners need to see an elevation of what this will look like before we approve the plan. I also suggested that the diocese needs to approve the changes, according to Canon XXXI, Section 2:

It shall be the duty of every Parish of the Diocese to lay before this Commission [on Church Architecture] the preliminary sketches of any new Church, Chapel, parish house or rectory, or of proposed changes of importance in any such existent buildings, and no such work of erection or changes shall be undertaken until the plans shall have received the approval of the Commission. The counsel and advice of the Commission shall be given in writing to the parish requesting the same within one calendar month after the receipt of the plans by the said Commission.

Curiously, Lou, who serves with me on the Committee on Constitution and Canons, did not seem aware of this provision.

Outreach

I have been in e-mail conversation with our treasurer, Bob Johnston, about St. Paul’s’ parochial report. This is a report for The Episcopal Church that every parish fills out annually concerning its activities and its finances. Mostly, it is the source of statistics about our church, but it is also used for other purposes, such as computing our diocesan assessment, the money we pay to the diocese to support the diocese and the larger church.

Because it was not obvious from the annual report where some of the financial information on the parochial report was coming from, I have been asking Bob for clarifications. He has been both patient and helpful, and I can only say that it is difficult to imagine a parish treasurer’s being any more forthcoming and cheerful than Bob has been. I now think I understand almost everything of a financial nature that appears in our parochial report.

This morning, Bob sent me a spreadsheet listing, among other things, money that we collect and forward to other organizations such as Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD). I was very surprised by his accounting, because some of these numbers appear nowhere in our annual report. For example, I extracted this chart of money we sent to various organizations last year from the information Bob supplied:

Beneficiary	Amount
Episcopal Relief and Development	$6,640
South Hills Food Pantry	$4,675
Shepherd’s Heart	$464
Church Periodical Club	$80
Pat Hurd Mission Trip	$2,551
Total	$13,946

None of these numbers appears in the annual report, presumably because the amounts represent special collections, often in special envelopes, given directly to the recipients listed. I want to take note of these numbers because some parishioners chide us for our stinginess regarding outreach. Indeed, we spend no money on outreach from pledges and plate income. Parishioners should notice, however, that the Outreach Fund gave away $4,300 last year, mainly from fundraisers such as our fish fries. Likewise, ECW contributed nearly $13,000 in outreach to such organizations as ERD, Calvary Camp, and United Thank Offering. Without looking deeply for expenditures that might conceivably be construed as outreach, therefore, we can confidently say that we are giving away more than $30,000 to organizations doing outreach.

Should we be devoting more money to outreach? Probably. But let’s give ourselves credit for the outreach we are doing. And next year, let’s make sure that all our outreach, even money we collect and immediately send off to organizations like ERD, is shown in our annual report.

More Answers from the Treasurer

I cannot say enough about Bob Johnston’s forthrightness in addressing my questions about finances at St. Paul’s. This morning he sent me additional answers to my questions, so I hope to clear up some of the mysteries of the financial information published in the 2010 annual report.

The question numbers below refer to my January 30 post, “Questions for the Annual Meeting.” Answers from Bob to other questions can be found in my February 19 post, “Answers from the Treasurer.”

Question 5. I asked why the Episcopal Church Men Fund earned no interest. I thought I was asking why the money was not in an interest-bearing account. The answer was not quite what I expected:

ECM cash is in a collective fund at PNC with several other funds. Interest was not allocated to the fund for the following reasons:

• It was not a material balance compared to the other funds,
• The earnings rate was minimal due to the economy and the fact that we borrow from this collective fund frequently throughout the year for liquidity purposes, and
• The ECM earnings would have been less than $5.

Apparently, ECM does not have its own checkbook, and its funds are mingled with those of other organizations. Apparently, its money earned interest, but that interest was “allocated” to some other fund. I think I would be uncomfortable with this if I were involved in ECM. This sort of accounting seems odd indeed.

Question 7. This is another question that elicited a completely unexpected answer. I asked where the $1,000 for salaries paid by Friends of Music went. Bob’s answer:

The $1,000 salary in the Friends of Music account represents part of Bryan Sable’s salary. You will recall that his salary is paid out of several places.

Question 8. I asked about Kris Opat’s claim that St. Paul’s ponied up $8,000 in seed money for Refuge, since I could not find $8,000 for Refuge from the parish in the financial report. Bob’s answer:

In addition to the $5,502 that I indicated in my first answer [$1,000 in donations (source not identified), $1, 502 in offerings (hardly seed money, but OK), and $3,000 from the Education Fund], Kris included money that was used for the Clavinova from the Friends of Music Fund ($1,000) and Memorial Fund ($3,000). So, the total seed money from St. Paul's was more than $8,000.

Of course, none of this money was in the 2010 budget. That isn’t a problem, per se, but money used to fund Refuge could—except for the $1,502 in Refuge “income”—have been used elsewhere.

Question 10. I asked if there was a budget for Refuge for 2011 and whether additional money is expected from the diocese. Bob’s answer:

The cost of Refuge for 2011 is between $20,000 and $25,000. The variables are how much we need to spend on supplies and how much money we will spend on advertising. As previously indicated, we have already received a 2011 grant from the diocese of $12,000 and anticipate receiving an additional grant.

In other words, no and yes. From what I have heard, I am not so sanguine about receiving more diocesan money for Refuge.

Question 11. I asked if we intended to run Refuge in the summer and fall and, if so, where the money was to come from. Bob’s answer:

We hope to continue Refuge throughout the summer. The funds for the balance of 2011 will come from the Diocesan grants and the loose offerings received at Refuge.

At the beginning of 2011, the Refuge Service Fund contained $13,374. Assuming that offerings are about $1,500/quarter—this is probably optimistic, since attendance may well fall off in the summer—we might come close to financing Refuge, even without additional diocesan funds. Of course, this is based on our guesstimate, rather than budget, for the service. Remember also, that Refuge gave us the excuse to hire 20% of Bryan’s time out of the operating fund. This is not to dismiss Bryan’s contribution to the parish, but we are, after all, having trouble paying the salaries of our increasingly large staff.

House Tour

Lou took attendees at Tuesday’s staff meeting on a tour of a house directly across Mayfair Drive from St. Paul’s. He suggested that the parish could buy the house and convert it to meeting rooms, space for the youth program, or, unbelievably, a rectory. The house could be financed from a capital campaign to be launched this summer. The house can be seen below. (Sorry about the photograph. It was taken during heavy rain, and the lot is rather overgrown.)

Commentary

The idea of buying one of the houses adjacent to St. Paul’s has several times been considered by the Vestry. Obviously, the Vestry has not hitherto approved such a proposal. Probably what the church needs most is office space and storage space, and a nearby house could provide that. I have personally advocated such a purchase when nearby real estate has come on the market. I suspect the Vestry has not acted in these circumstances either because there was not a clear plan for what the church would do with a house or because it wasn’t obvious how to fund such a purchase.

I am told that the church has been given five months to make an offer on the house in question. My suspicion is that the owners came to the church. Selling to St. Paul’s could be attractive in a bad real estate market, in which buyers might be hard to find. But is the purchase a good move for the church?

It is difficult to see how. To begin with, stone houses in Mt. Lebanon do not come cheap. Whatever state the property is in—there is reason to believe the house is not in a good state of repair—it would need to be renovated to serve whatever role we assigned to it, and we would likely have to spend a good deal to bring it into code compliance as a public building by adding things like sprinklers. Even with a good deal of renovation, it is difficult to see how the building could be made handicapped accessible. It is a multi-story house whose entrance is a good deal higher than street level. We could easily spend half a million dollars and still not have a convenient or handicapped-accessible building.

Even if we had half a million dollars in hand, this looks like a solution in search of a problem. Does Lou really not have a plan, or does he have a plan he is simply not telling us? (The latter seems more likely.) He told the staff meeting that half the parishes in The Episcopal Church have rectories. That may have once been true, but I doubt it is any more. The Church Pension Fund has long recommended against parish rectories, and many of those properties that have not been sold off are being occupied by renters unrelated to the parish landlords. I know a lot of local parishes that have sold their rectories but not many with existing rectories. Cynthia Bronson-Sweigert has moved out of Redeemer’s rectory, which she thought too small. St. Andrew’s has converted its rectory into meeting space, though the upper floor is not in use because the parish did not have the money to bring it up to code.

In any case, buying a nearby house may not be the only way for the parish to get more space. Some storage could be had off-site. We might even be able to build over the parking lot. Such alternatives should be considered along with the purchase of adjacent real estate. Are we, in fact, using the space we have effectively?

Rather more disturbing is that Lou’s capital campaign, as we knew it would, is again rearing its ugly head. Surely, the real message from the Episcopal Church Foundation was that not only did the parish not like certain aspects of Fulfilling the Vision, but that the parish had issues that had to be dealt with before embarking on such a campaign. Whatever you may think of the emotional health of the parish, however, we appear to be unable to fully finance even our payroll, much less make necessary repairs to our building. (With all the rain, water has been leaking into the chapel, by the way.) Surely the building we already own needs to take precedence over renovation of a building we might buy.

It is time for St. Paul’s to take a serious look at the state of the parish. The visioning we did a year and a half ago was a sham. Real engagement by the members of the parish is required. We need to start over, developing a realistic vision for the future—a vision owned by parishioners, not simply by the rector.

Outreach: An Oversight

I am only a modest blogger who sometimes is guilty of overlooking the obvious. In my last post—see “Quantifying Outreach”—I stated that the 15% Outreach slice in the pie chart at the right represented St. Paul’s “mandatory outreach,” our diocesan assessment and payment to the Growth Fund. It was pointed out to me, however, that this is cannot the case.

Assuming that the pie chart represents expenditures from the Operating Fund, the value of the two items mentioned is $69,624, whereas the total expenditures from the Operating Fund is $717,108. Thus, mandatory outreach represents roughly 10%, not 15% of the budget. What accounts for the other 5%? For the two expenses in question, one cannot even attribute building overhead; we don’t even need a building to pay our diocesan assessment. This is another interesting question for the treasurer.

Quantifying Outreach

There is some distress in the congregation that St. Paul’s supports no outreach from its general funds. This is not to say that the parish does no outreach. Feeding people at Shepherd’s Heart doesn’t show up in our financial statement, for example, because the labor and food involved are contributed by parishioners directly. One cannot deny that this is serious outreach, however. Various fund raising events have resulted in donations to such organizations as Habitat for Humanity and the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank. Parishioners also contribute money to organizations such as Episcopal Relief and Development and United Thank Offering.

In other words, we are more generous than we seem to be if all one looks at is the Operating Fund Revenues and Expenses in the annual report. The way we account for income and expenditures, however, makes it difficult to quantify outreach from St. Paul’s, particularly because outreach to the likes of Shepherd’s Heart does not appear at all. Nonetheless, it would be interesting if someone would total up all the outreach that can be accounted for, even if it does not flow through the Operating Fund. (One could generate a figure from the annual report, but I’ll leave that for another day.)

Alas, the pie chart that occasionally crops up in St. Paul’s publications only represents the Operating Fund. It shows that we give 15% of our money for outreach, but this is actually “mandatory outreach,” which is to say, no outreach at all. It is basically church overhead, being made up of our diocesan assessment and the payment to the Growth Fund needed to obtain loans from the fund. (See “Report from the Treasurer Q&A.”) Actual outreach in that pie chart should be shown as 0%.

The complaint that our parish does little outreach got me thinking of what we do or have done or might do that could be construed as outreach. For example, we used to sell snacks to children after school. I don’t know if we made money on this enterprise, but we were certainly showing the flag and giving an opportunity for the kids to interact is meaningful ways with the staff. That, I think, was outreach.

Other activities are not so clear. I have been inclined to consider events such as organ recitals as outreach, sharing our magnificent instrument and visiting organists with the community. I’m not so sure that this belongs in the same category as feeding the hungry, although it may address a certain spiritual need. Likewise, allowing outside groups—various support groups come immediately to mind—to use our building is outreach, although we don’t account for it as such. Arguably, this is just what churches do, but some churches clearly do more than others, and to call it outreach doesn’t seem to be too much of a stretch.

Such considerations led me to ask a question I had not asked before. Certainly, worship services are not outreach in the sense that the church usually uses that term. What about a service like Refuge, however? Is it just another worship service, one of those things churches do? Or is it outreach to an under-served population, perhaps even to the unchurched? I don’t really have an answer to that question. Lou has emphasized that we have many services that address different tastes—I’m not sure that’s the word he would use—and Refuge, like the 8:45 service, is one item on the St. Paul’s worship menu. Most of the people who attend the Refuge service seem to be parishioners who see Refuge as offering a different worship experience at what for them is a convenient time.

On the other hand, perhaps Refuge really does represent outreach. If it does, we can be excused from missing that fact, since we never really got a proposal for what the service was supposed to do or how its impact was to be evaluated. I find it difficult to distinguish Refuge from, say, the 8:45 service, as we marketed the services in much the same way, even though we spent more money on Refuge. But Refuge really is different, and, whether or not it is attracting a very different demographic from our other services, I think it is at least intended to do so.

The question about Refuge is important because our parish—any parish, in fact—has to set priorities. Supposedly, when diocesan funds for Refuge run out, if Refuge is to continue, the parish will have to finance it 100%. At that point, if we see Refuge as just another worship service, no matter how innovative, we have to ask if we can really afford to have six weekend worship opportunities, some of which attract few worshipers. If we see Refuge as outreach, we have to ask if money on Refuge as outreach is well spent, or whether our limited outreach funds—presently $0, in fact—should go to supporting Refuge or to supporting the likes of Habitat for Humanity or the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank.

Report from the Treasurer Q&A

There was a good turnout for the Q&A session at church today with treasurer Bob Johnston. Bob handed out a copy of the 2011 budget, which, unlike the version distributed at the annual meeting, included details. Those details even included a breakdown of personnel expenses, though not with figures broken down by employee. (You can view the handout here.)

The first question asked involved whether the personnel figures presented reflected salary cuts. Bob answered that they did—a 5.35% cut for lay staff and a 10.7% cut in salary and housing allowance for clergy.

Another question asked about mandatory outreach (diocesan/Episcopal Church assessment plus Growth Fund contribution). The figure is higher for 2011 than for 2010 because the parish was granted a more than $10,000 reduction last year. Bob indicated that we intended to ask for about a $1,500 reduction this year. (Out of perversity, I asked if we would ask for an assessment increase if we received more funds than expected. Bob didn’t think so. The assessment is based on a three-year average of income, which is intended to account for ups and downs in parish fortunes. One wonders how well we are planning if we have to ask for a reduction in assessment each year, particularly if we are already planning to do so in February. Perhaps we should be cutting expenditures instead.)

I asked if the $25,000 withdrawal from the Contingency Fund shouldn’t be considered operating income. Bob said that it was money we had already paid assessment on and therefore should not be considered operating income. He was uncertain about whether money taken from endowment and used for operating expenses should be considered operating income.

I said that my reading of the instructions for filling out the parochial report would require the $25,000 to be considered operating income, as would income to funds like the Altar Guild Fund.

A number of questions and comments involved possible economies. People asked if we could reduce utility costs, for example. One person noted that many tasks now performed by staff used to be done by volunteers. (Apparently, the youth program was once run by parents and other adults.) The cost of special musical events was questioned, although non-worship-related musical programs seem to be financed through Friends of Music. Someone asked why Friends of Music didn’t pay off any remaining debt from the organ installation. (No one had an answer to that.)

It was pointed out that a committee was formed in 2009 to develop strategies for eliminating budget deficits. Bob noted that the parish is now putting together a finance committee to provide such advice. He said the report from the earlier committee would be forwarded to the new one.

It was noted that we are losing money on Coffee/Coke. Bob suggested that providing coffee was primarily responsible for this. In the discussion, it came out that whatever fund donut sale money goes into is not represented at all in the annual report.

A question was asked about support of Old St. Luke’s. Lou answered that he thought we had provided no support for Old St. Luke’s since before he arrived. That church is financed primarily through wedding revenues.

I noted that none of the funds other than the Operating Fund had a budget in the annual report. Bob noted that, if any of those funds do have budgets, the Vestry never sees them. I then asked about the Refuge Service Fund, which, of course, has no budget in the annual report. If we are eventually to finance this service ourselves, we need to know its cost. What, I asked, has the diocese given us this year. Lou indicated that the diocese has contributed $12,000, with the promise of giving more this year. Someone suggested that we should have periodic updates on the Refuge Service Fund. Someone else suggested that the same would be helpful for the Children and Youth Ministries Fund.

A number of people expressed discontent at the proliferation of miscellaneous funds, which makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the financial state of the parish. Lou remarked that, except for ECW, the Vestry has to sign off on expenditures from these funds. (I’m not sure that response quite addressed the identified problem.)

Bob insisted that funds outside the Operating Fund were not set up to avoid diocesan assessment, though he seemed to admit that the arrangement might have that effect.

A question was raised concerning the cost of color handouts. Bob noted that the 8:45 bulletin cost about $45/week, the Refuge bulletin cost about $4/week (bulletins are used for more than one week), and the bulletin for the other services—that bulletin is usually black & white—costs $24/week. The parish newsletter costs about $150/month to print on our leased copiers.

I asked why our consolidation loan from the diocese, which I admitted was a good thing, was for more than the remaining principal of our two loans. Bob answered that the PNC loan had a provision for a prepayment penalty.

Someone asked why two people on the staff were involved in ministry for children and youth, and why we have so many sextons. Bob explained the division of labor and explained that we only pay sextons for the work done; we may have more sextons than formerly, but they are not being paid for more work.

Several comments and questions involved outreach. We are, of course, spending no money on outreach, though many parishioners are contributing personally to outreach projects. We are certainly not giving the 10% of our income to outreach, as the parish once voted to do.

I asked if the $19,000 or so difference between budgeted pledges and pledges in hand had a reasonable chance of being eliminated. Bob answered that Valerie had studied who has pledged in the past, not pledged this year, but is still contributing, and she concluded that the gap would, indeed, be closed.

Answers from the Treasurer

So as not to ambush him at tomorrow’s meeting about the parish’s finances, I wrote to treasurer Bob Johnston to let him know about my questions. To my surprise, Bob answered in writing. I am grateful for his promptness and frankness. I want to note his answers here, which I will interpret, rather than reproduce. The question numbers refer those in “Questions for the Annual Meeting.”

Question 1: The issue here is how to read the parish financial statements. Bob wrote

The amounts listed as short-term portion on the balance sheet represent the total principal payments on each loan that will be due during the coming twelve months. The amounts listed as long-term portion are the principal payments that are due in subsequent years.

Actually, this is very interesting. According to the balance sheet on page 14 of the annual report, our two loans, as of the beginning of this year, had a total outstanding principal of $65,701.86. Why, then, did the diocesan Growth Fund give us a loan to “refinance” our loans to the tune of $69,900? (See parish announcement here.) What we doing we doing with the excess of more than $4,000? Does the diocese know there is an excess of $4,198.14?

Bob went on to explain that interest payments on our loans ($4,498.39 in 2010—see line 512006 on page 16) are an operating expense, but principal payments are not. Specifically, he wrote

Principal payments are shown separately since they are repayments of amounts on the balance sheet and are not an expense to the church (they are a cash payment, however), but interest costs are an expense to the church, as well as a cash payment.

Although I don’t pretend to understand this logic, it does explain the $17,677.97 payment in the cash flow statement on page 19 and the similar, but negative, figure on page 18. It was not intuitively clear to me that “PNC and Diocesan Roof Loan Payments” on page 19 represented only the principle payments. Such payments should be labeled as principal payments in the future.

Question 2: Bob did not tell me what the Education Fund is for, perhaps because he does not know. He justified taking $3,000 from it to “educate” Kris about the Wilderness service in Denver. (The church sent him to Denver to investigate.)

Question 3: Because of the lateness of the hour—I want to get this posted tonight—I am going to reproduce Bob’s response first and make only a small comment on it.

This $25,000 was initially a loan from the Contingency Fund until it was determined that we would not have any excess cash at the end of 2010 to repay it. At that point, the decision was made to "write it off," or in other words treat it as a permanent withdrawal from the Contingency Fund. It would not be classified as revenue for the operating fund but would appear on the balance sheet for the operating fund as a liability to the Contingency Fund, if we had decided that we intended to pay it back in the near future. Interest income, of any type, is a true income item for any fund, so the interest income of the Contingency Fund needs to show up somewhere as income and we always transfer it to the operating fund as income in that fund. I don’t understand the surplus of $13,472.96 that you mention. As shown in the Operating Fund Statement on page 15, the operating fund has a deficit of $11,527.04 after loan principal payments. As you will also see on that same statement, there was a surplus realized, prior to loan principal payments, of $6,150.93. We have chosen to supplement the operating fund statement by including the loan principal payments, even though they are not expenses (rather the repayment of an amount borrowed), because we believe it shows a more complete picture of our cash deficit. I am not sure which "special funds" you have included, so I cannot recomputed the net loss of $600 that you mention.

There is no intent to obscure our true finances in order to reduce our assessment liability to the diocese. I am not sure why you say more and more items are being removed from the operating fund. The only item I am aware of removing in the past couple of years are the Children and Youth costs and we did that because we received special contributions from the Cotillion Fund specifically for Children and Youth costs and we felt it was only proper to segregate those amounts in a separate fund to which we charge expenses for Children and Youth. There has not been a discussion as to how the Salary Restoration Fund donations will be treated for revenue purposes.

I had suspected that the “loan” from the Contingency had been changed to a withdrawal. I believe this should have been treated as operating income, however. (More on that next time.)

Question 4: Bob explained that the Property Commission pays for “normal operating expenses” such as utilities, maintenance, and minor repairs. The Property Fund covers “major repairs and maintenance of a capital nature.” The $25,100 line for donations (page 22) did come from parishioners, though Bob did not make clear under what circumstances they were contributed. Clearly, the line between Property Commission costs and Property Fund costs is blurry. Here and elsewhere, as far as representing the financial condition of the parish, it makes no difference how contributions such as the aforementioned $25,100 are accounted for. For purposes of computing the diocesan assessment, it might. (Frankly, it does not seem to me as though any of the expenses of the Property Fund represent capital improvements. They all seem like routine—if perhaps too long deferred—maintenance.)

Question 5: Bob said he has to check on this. Apparently, the money is not in an interest-bearing account. Why not?

Question 6: Bob indicated that Bryan’s salary is split 80% to Refuge and 20% to other activities. As best as I can tell, the $5,264.86 represents Bryan’s salary and FICA. Bob did not say whether other musicians were being paid for Refuge and, if so, where the money is accounted for. The 20% of Bryan’s salary and FICA is included under Total Personnel Commission. Bryan’s salary, therefore, seems to be accounted for responsibly. (I still want to know if we are paying other musicians for Refuge.)

Question 7: Bob did not know who was paid $1,000 out of the Friends of Music account. Apparently, Virginia Schaap is the Music Guild Administrator. Her duties seem to include publicity and soliciting funds.

Question 8: Bob could not explain this figure fully, and said he would have to consult with Kris. He suggested that staff time to prepare bulletins and the like might be included here. If this is the case, why does it not show up in Refuge Service Fund revenues?

Question 9: I think I will just reproduce Bob’s answer here.

At this point in time, given our budget position, we do not anticipate providing any support to Old St. Luke’s. It is up to Doug where he saves $2,100 in the music area. He is given that budget and needs to adhere to it, unless he comes to the Vestry for authorization to spend more. As part of the process of determining the best way to balance the budget, it was decided that Music was an area we would look to for savings.

Question 10: Again, let me just give Bob’s answer, which includes information I did not know.

I will have to get back to you on what the budget is for Refuge in 2011, but we have already received a grant from the diocese for 2011 expenses. I will confirm that amount, as well.

Question 11: From Bob:

You should ask Kris and/or Lou this question. I have not been intimately involved in discussions about Refuge.

Question 12: Bob reported that we now have 232 pledges totaling $591,320, but he admits that this might not be up-to-date. It is, however, more than was reported in the annual report. There are five additional pledges, but the average amount of the new pledges is substantially below that of previously reported pledges. (We have sometimes shown the distribution of pledges, which was very interesting. I’m sure some parishioners were surprised at how much they were giving, and others were surprised at how little they were giving. In general, the average pledge is usually above the median pledge.)

Bob also provided answers for the questions in my post “Questions for the Treasurer.” His answers to these questions were particularly helpful, and I have no need to elaborate or comment on them. I reproduce them below.

Question 1:

The basis of the requests made in 2010 was that we were projecting a deficit and did not want to decimate our Contingency Fund by using a large portion of it to cover the deficit. Having no endowment fund to tap for income, we were in a tough situation. Early in the year, we requested a $6,000 reduction in our assessment. The Budget and Assessments Committee of Diocesan Council deferred action on that request and asked that we approach it again later in the year, if our financial position worsened or we determined that we still needed the $6,000 based on actual results further into the year. In the fall, we felt that our position had worsened, based on projections for the balance of the year. We therefore approached the Budget and Assessments Committee again, with a higher request (around $12,000, if I recall correctly). In the end, we were granted a reduction of $10,600. That amount represented two months of our assessment. We anticipate requesting a small reduction in our 2011 assessment based upon our current budgeted income being lower than the average of the last three years. The calculation of what we will request is based upon the diocesan formula for determining assessments and applying that formula to our projected 2011 income.

Question 2:

As you know, St. Paul’s has two loans outstanding. One is with the Diocesan Growth fund at 3% and has about 4 years left on its term. The other is with PNC Bank at over 7% but I do not know the number of years left on its term off the top of my head. It was the amount borrowed when we renovated the Nursery School area and purchased the organ. In order to conserve cash by spreading the payments over a longer period of time and paying a lower interest rate, we decided to apply to the Growth Fund for a loan to refinance these two loans. This week, we were granted a loan of $69,900 (amount owed on the loans as of the beginning of 2011) at 3% interest with an amortization period over 10 years and a balloon payment at the end of 5 years. Our intention is to pay off this loan with the first proceeds of the anticipated capital campaign in the next 12-18 months.

See my comments to the first Question 1.

Question 3:

This entire amount represents our diocesan assessment, national church assessment and Growth Fund contribution. We classify this as Mandated Outreach, as you will note on page 18 of the 2010 Annual Report, as it is money used outside of St. Paul’s to support diocesan programs, national church programs and Growth Fund activities.

Question 4: Bob sent a spreadsheet with the requested information.

More on the Financial Front

The first of my financial questions was answered today in St. Paul’s’ weekly e-mail:

Good Financial News!
As I noted in the Treasurer's Report included in St. Paul's 2010 Annual Report, we applied for a $69,900 loan from the diocesan Growth Fund to refinance our current loan with the Growth Fund and our PNC loan. The purpose of the loan was to reduce our interest costs (the PNC loan was above 7% and we could refinance at 3% with the diocese), as well as our cash outlay each year for these loans. I am happy to report that the Board of Trustees approved our loan at their February meeting, which will save us about $4,600 compared to what we budgeted for 2011.

This news more or less answers question 2 in my post “Questions for the Treasurer.” Unfortunately, it raises another question. The new loan from the diocese is for $69,900. On page 14 of the annual report, however, the total of the short-term and long-term portions of our two loans—I really don’t understand the short-term/long-term distinction, by the way—is $65,701.86. Did we borrow more than we needed?

There seems to be good news and bad news on the stewardship front. Apparently we need more pledges than we had in hand when the annual meeting was held. Nevertheless, the annual meeting was held almost exactly one year after the 2010 annual meeting, so it should be meaningful to compare pledges reported at the two meetings. (Somewhat as an aside, I note that our meeting this year was held on Sunday, January 30. According to the 2010 minutes on page 45 of the annual report, that meeting was held on January 30, 2010. I think the correct date is January 31, 2010.)

According to John Sweeney’s Stewardship Commission report (page 37), as of January 10, we had 227 pledges totaling $587,420. This is good news because the average pledge is $2,587.75. According to the minutes of the 2010 meeting, the average pledge at about the same time of year was only $2,103.34. Now the bad news. According to the minutes from last year, the rector announced that we had 290 pledges in hand totaling $610,000. In other words, from 2010 to 2011, we increased pledges by 23%, but the number of pledges decreased by 22% . What is going on here? Perhaps Lou’s boast that the 290 pledges included “44 brand new pledges” suggests an answer. Since new pledges tend to be lower than pledges from long-time parishioners, perhaps we lost many of those new pledges, thus raising the average. If so, it is not an encouraging trend.

One final concern. Whereas in the annual reports of other parishes, I see information about discretionary funds, there is no such information in our annual report. Why is that? Does the parish not contribute to discretionary funds for priests?

Questions for the Treasurer

St. Paul’s Finances
"Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know about St. Paul’s Finances, But Were Afraid to Ask" led by Treasurer Bob Johnston, will be held on Sunday, February 20 during the 9:40 adult formation time in the back of the Parish Hall/Undercroft. Please join Bob for this question and answer session about our parish budget and finances.

The above announcement has appeared in a variety of places. The session presumably is intended to compensate for the lack of such a session prior to the annual meeting and to the suppression of questions at the annual meeting from which the treasurer was absent. I am delighted that the session has been scheduled, though I have my doubts that the allotted time for the meeting is sufficient. Also, I am not happy that I have to miss rehearsal with the choir to attend the meeting. (Sorry, Doug.)

I had a long list of questions I was not allowed to ask at the annual meeting—see “Questions for the Annual Meeting”—most of which are financial. I hope to get answers to those financial questions on Sunday. I have some additional questions I will list here. I invite others to suggest issues I may have missed.

New questions:

1. In the past year, St. Paul’s made several requests for reduced parish assessment. What was the basis of these requests? How much of a reduction was requested, and how much was granted? Are additional requests for reductions anticipated? If so, on what basis?
2. A diocesan newsletter this past week contained this item: “The Growth Fund also approved a request from St. Paul's, Mt. Lebanon, for a restructuring of its debt.” Can you explain?
3. In the monthly financial statement in The Messenger, a large expense is “Outreach.” My understanding is the the major part of this is our diocesan assessment. Please list all items that make up the Outreach figure and justify their inclusion in the category.
4. Please provide a complete breakout of “Total Personnel Commission,” which, after all, is the largest piece of St. Paul’s’ budget.

N.B. I have made Bob Johnston aware of these and earlier questions.

Questions for the Annual Meeting

I went to St. Paul’s annual meeting with a written list of questions. I didn’t get much past asking question 1. (See “Annual Meeting Report.”) I got something of an answer to my second question, but I don’t consider anything that I was told to be definitive. I do expect to pursue answers to these questions, and I will post the answers here as I ferret them out.

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Questions for St. Paul’s Annual Meeting

1. I am confused about how loans are represented in the financial statement. In the Operating Fund balance sheet on page 14, there are lines for both short-term and long-term loan liabilities. Can you explain this?
   
   Follow-on question: In the cash flow statement on page 19, there is an item called PNC and Diocesan Roof Loan Payments. On the previous page, at the end of the Operating Fund accounting, there is an item labeled Less Debt Principal. Does this not represent the payments of both principal and interest on our two loans, since the amount is the same as the line on page 19?
   
   
2. Page 21 shows $3,000 “donated” to the Refuge Service Fund from the Education Fund. What is the Education Fund intended for, and how does a “donation” to Refuge constitute support for “education”?
   
   
3. On page 20, there is a $25,000 item in Contingency Fund expenses labeled Write of 2010 loan to Operating Fund. Is it not true that this is not a loan intended to be repaid but simply a withdrawal from the Contingency Fund? Moreover, if this is revenue into the Operating Fund, why does it not show up under Revenues on page 15, rather than as capital (i.e., equity) on the Operating Fund balance sheet, where it is labeled Write off Loan from Contingency and Revenue Funds? (On the other hand, interest income from the Contingency Fund, which was transferred to the Operating Fund, does show up as revenue on page 15.) Is it not true that the Operating Fund less loan payments actually has a surplus of $13,472.96? Moreover, is it not true that if all the opening balances of the special funds are added together and all the ending balances subtracted, there is a net loss of less than $600?
   
   Follow-on question: Whether legitimately or not, are we not removing more and more items from the Operating Fund—at a serious risk of obscuring our true finances—in order to reduce our assessment liability to the diocese? Do you intend to not report donations to the Salary Restoration Fund to the diocese as operating revenue?
   
   
4. What is the difference between the Property Commission, whose expenditures are shown on page 16, and the Property Fund, accounted for separately on page 22? Did the $25,100 in donations come from parishioners and, if so, why is this outside the Operating Fund?
   
   
5. Why does the Episcopal Church Men Fund, which contains $2,542.19 show no interest income?
   
   
6. Under Refuge expenses on page 26, there is a $5,264.86 item labeled Musicians. Exactly what musicians are being paid? Does this include Bryan Sable’s salary? If so, does it include taxes and other benefit payments paid on his behalf? Is part of his pay buried under Total Personnel Commission?
   
   
7. In the accounting of the Friends of Music account, to whom was $800 paid for Music Guild Admin? Who was paid the $1,000 Salary listed two lines down?
   
   
8. In his report on Refuge, Kris Opat stated that the parish contributed $8,000 in seed money to Refuge. Why is there not $8,000 in income from the parish shown in the Refuge Service Fund on page 26?
   
   
9. The 2011 budget looks very similar to the 2010 budget. I noticed, however, that worship and music has been reduced from $17,000 to $13,900, although actual 2010 expenditures were only $15,511.38, since we did not provide the budgeted $1,000 to Old St. Luke’s. Do we anticipate any support for Old St. Luke’s, and where do we expect to save $2,100 on music?
   
   
10. What is the budget for Refuge for 2011? Do you anticipate receiving funds from the diocese?
    
    
11. Kris Opat indicated that there is enough money set aside for Refuge to support the service through Pentecost. Do you intend to run the service during the summer, and, assuming you are expecting to offer Refuge in the fall, where do you expect to get the funds to do so?
    
    
12. Of the $610,000 listed as 2011 pledge income, how much is currently pledged and how many pledge units does this represent?
    
    
13. In his report on Refuge, Kris Opat stated that an average of 34 people attended Refuge services, though this apparently counts the people putting it on and is inflated by the attendance at the first service and a service that members of the confirmation class were required to attend. What has been the average attendance at the other services that St. Paul’s conducts? In particular, how many people, on average, attend the 8:45 versus the 10:30 service?
    
    
14. A question for the senior warden: Your report was quite glowing, and it left me thinking that St. Paul’s cannot be better than it is now. Is there any area in which you see need for improvement? If so, where do we need to improve?

Annual Meeting Report

Today’s annual meeting at St. Paul’s was a whitewash. It began in a rather poetic manner. I had pointed out to Doug Starr before the meeting began that the handout containing the opening hymn, “Christ is made the sure foundation,” was missing the last line of music and words. We sang it anyway. Everyone in the choir knew the tune, and most seemed to know at least some of the words of the last line. A few people had hymnals; others simply looked perplexed.

Because there was no contest for the four Vestry positions, voting seemed pointless. I submitted a blank ballot.

Doug had asked the choir to leave the meeting at 10:20 to practice for the 10:45. I had decided to leave early only if there was no reason to stay. There wasn’t.

Lou talked about the annual report and said that if anyone had any questions about the financial statements or anything else, they could talk to the relevant people one-on-one outside the meeting. Remarkably, the treasurer, Bob Johnston could not attend. Most of my questions—I will list them in my next post—were of a financial nature, and some were quite technical. Nonetheless, I raised a point of order and asked if we could ask questions. I was told to ask, but it was clear this was not going to go well. Lou tried to answer my first question and either did not understand it or simply could not provide an answer. I tried to ask a follow-up question, but it was clear that the crowd had no interest in this sort of thing. I shut up and left soon after to attend choir rehearsal, though not before saying that I didn’t understand what the annual meeting was for. The point in asking questions, in my mind, was not only to get answers, but also to let others hear both the questions and answers. Talking privately to the treasurer does not accomplish that.

I did ask for a public session in which people could ask questions of the treasurer, which Lou seemed to agree to set up. We’ll see if such a meeting materializes.

I did stay long enough to hear Lou talk about the parish’s great successes in the past year, though he expressed disappointment in failing to launch a capital campaign. Surely we have not heard the last of the capital campaign idea.

Annual Report Part 8

This is my last report before tomorrow’s annual meeting, not because I have run out of observations, but because I have run out of time. Although it might be helpful to summarize what I have said already, I will instead try to cover new ground and point out what I see as big, rather than trivial, problems.

First, let me say something about the form of our financial reporting to the parish. We take 16 pages to explain our financial position and use no notes to explain that which is not obvious. (In particular, we do not cross-reference related figures.) It is difficult not to believe that the purpose here is to obscure, rather than to elucidate. Moreover, more than 60% of our expenditures are unexplained (i.e., in “Total Personnel Commission”). It is also difficult not to believe that we have so many activities “off-budget,” i.e., not in the operating fund, in order to avoid their incomes being counted in the calculation of our diocesan assessment. (I have not seen how St. Paul’s’ assessment is calculated, so I may be completely wrong here.) I am concerned that the Salary Restoration Fund will effectively shield part of salaries from affecting our diocesan assessment, though I doubt that it was created for the purpose.

Christ Church, Indiana, recently had its annual meeting, and I happened to get hold of its annual report. The proposed 2011 budget is listed in great detail on pages 16 and 17. Salaries and fringe benefits are clearly shown. Pages 19 and 20 provide a detailed balance sheet, including account numbers analogous to those used by our own parish. Special funds are listed in the same balance sheet along with “operating” funds under the heading of “Equity Funds.” (Such funds include that for ECW, for example.) Pages 21 and 22 show a detailed profit & loss statement. These six pages of financial information inspire great confidence in both the financial health and financial transparency of Christ Church. (Parishioners are informed that there is $0.24 in the carpet fund, for example.) Christ Church had a net income of more than $2,000 last year, which is a much better result than we achieved.

Finally, I should say a few things about the so-called budget for 2011 that will be presented in tomorrow’s meeting. The budget contains 34 lines. The 2010 accounting of the St. Paul’s operating fund alone contains 100 lines. How can this possibly give an adequate view of intended 2011 revenues and expenditures? More to the point, only the operating fund is represented in the budget presentation. What will Refuge cost? How much money do we expect to spend on building repairs and improvements? What will ECW take in and spend? Who knows?

I shutter to think what explanation will be attached to the pie chart alleged to represent expenditures. (For convenience, I reproduce the pie chart and the data on which it is based below. These same figures were presented in “Annual Report Part 4.”)




It is interesting to compare this chart with the budget numbers, which show no money for outreach—our diocesan assessment is not outreach, and serving on diocesan boards is not outreach—and no money devoted to children and youth, among other things. The pie chart, I fear, is the product of smoke and mirrors.

Annual Report Part 7

I’d like to return to Refuge in this post, as I have not yet taken notice of Kris Opat’s report on the service that appears on page 4 of the annual report.

First, let me admit that Refuge has its virtues, but such a service would make more sense at an urban cathedral than it does in the affluent but quiet suburbs. Moreover, a project like Refuge should only be undertaken by a healthy parish looking for new challenges, not a parish like our own with many discontents and a widespread belief that the last “new” service has been a failure.

Having said that, let me offer three stories. I have all of them on good authority, but I admittedly heard them secondhand.

First, the good news (sort of). A member of the Unitarian church down the street came to a Refuge service and was quite impressed—impressed enough for her to invite a friend to the service. (I know the friend.) She remains a member of the Unitarian church, however. I was told of another woman who liked the service and showed up at Dickens’ Dames, certainly a good sign.

My final story is less happy. From the beginning—see “Reflecting on Refuge”—I have complained about the absence of adequate lighting in the Refuge service. I understand the desire to create a relaxing, contemplative atmosphere, but humans are neither owls nor bats; we become dysfunctional in real darkness. Apparently, a worshiper tripped at a recent service. This should be a wake-up call, but I don’t have confidence that it will be.

Now, to the matter of Kris’s report. He notes that an average of 34 people attended the service in 2010. Attendance over the 15 weeks Refuge was put on in 2010 is shown in the graph below.


The average attendance was indeed 34, as Kris asserted, but that number is less impressive than it might seem. Attendance at the first service was 90, more than two and a half times the average attendance. Obviously, that service attracted a great number of rubberneckers who never came back or who never even considered coming back. Also an outlier in the data is the attendance for December 5, when members of the confirmation class were required to attend. (God only knows why, other than to skew the attendance figures.)

If the two special Sunday services are excluded from the data, the average attendance was about 30. (The number would be slightly higher if we were to throw out the data for Halloween, which Kris described as “abnormally low.”) Given that five or more people are actually involved in staging the service, a more realistic statement of the average attendance is on the order of 25. No target attendance goals were ever stated for Refuge in 2010, so I cannot say if such a number represents success or not.

According to Kris’s report, the parish contributed $8,000 in start-up funds for Refuge. Moreover, the way he stated this, it appears as though that money was appropriated in the spring of 2010:

In the spring, Diocesan Council approved a grant of $12,000 to St. Paul’s for the new Sunday evening service. To that seed money St. Paul’s contributed another $8,000. In May we brought Kate Eaton to consult in the preparation and launch of Refuge at St. Paul’s.

It is difficult to account for this $8,000. (See “Annual Report Part 2.”)

Kris notes that the Refuge budget for 2010 was $23,000. (Vestry members repeatedly asked to see a Refuge budget and were never provided with one. I asked Valerie DeMarco for a full accounting of Refuge expenditures and met with the same result.) According to Kris, “$21,000 covered all expenses for 2010.” Perhaps it did. Then why are Refuge expenses for 2010 shown as only $16,128.45 on page 26? Again, see “Annual Report Part 2.”

Why does trying to make sense of Refuge accounting have to seem like watching a shell game?

Annual Report Part 4

I have not previously complained that the annual report and the Vestry candidate brochure have not appeared on the parish Web site, largely because my expectations of the site have become so low. Yesterday, however, I was told of a former parishioner who still has emotional ties to St. Paul’s and who had hoped to be able to read material for the annual meeting on the Web. He was, of course, disappointed. Of course, The material should have been put on the Web.

Depending on how it was assembled, the annual report may have been difficult to assemble into a form suitable for the Web, but, given St. Paul’s’ pretensions, we ought to have the ability in-house to do such things. Less forgivable is the failure, not only on the Web site but also in the parish e-mail newsletters of both this and last week to even name the candidates for Vestry positions. The e-mail of January 20 mentioned the candidate forums scheduled for the following Sunday. That notice contained this sentence: “We have a talented group of parishioners who are willing to serve, so please come and hear what they have to say so that you are an informed voter on January 30.” Was it too much trouble to name names, were we using suspense to attract a bigger crowd, or were we still twisting arms to get four candidates 10 days before the election? Parishioners need to know their Vestry members, of course, though such knowledge will not be especially useful Sunday, when four people will be competing for four positions. (I think I can predict the winners.)

The e-mail newsletter of two days ago announced the annual meeting, but it did not list candidates and did not contain information about the 2011 budget, which was not reproduced in the annual report. That budget was discussed at the Vestry meeting last Monday, though neither the senior warden nor the treasurer was there to provide explanations.

When I attended Saturday Bible Study this morning, the undercroft was set up for tomorrow’s meeting. At the front table were stacks of various documents, including ballots (which a fellow student thought a waste of paper), a report from the senior warden—John Adam’s report was not in the annual report—and a 2011 budget summary.

Below, I reproduce the budget information. I am offering this before I have had time to analyze it, in the hope that as many people as possible will be prepared to discuss the budget intelligently at the meeting. I will post the senior warden’s report and additional commentary later today.

First, the numbers:



Here is the “mission-budget” analysis to be presented at the meeting and the data on which it is based:

Annual Report Part 3

How much outreach does St. Paul’s do? Judging from the annual report, the answer is not much. Of course, I should be quick to admit that a lot of outreach is undertaken by parishioners that does not show up in the financial information in the report. For example, food bank contributions and meals served at Shepherd’s Heart should not be overlooked. On the other hand, no money from the operating fund is allocated to outreach.

The financial operation of the Outreach Fund is shown on page 26. All income is from fund raisers, which facilitated donations to outreach projects totaling $4,300. ECW was responsible for a good deal more outreach, enabled in part by earning nearly $11,000 from the 2010 Canterbury Fair. The accounting on page 28 of the annual report shows $15,218.70 contributed to outreach projects. More details are provided in the ECW report on page 43, which makes it clear that some of the $2,422.05 listed as “parish outreach” might not qualify as money given to ease the pain of others. (Personally, I wouldn’t classify lounge repairs and a new sink as outreach.) Nonetheless, the work of ECW is impressive.

As an aside, I should mention that it is unhelpful that information about ECW spending is distributed between pages 28 and 43. It is particularly confusing, as community outreach is reported as $10,817.65 on one page and as $12,796.65 on the other. This is because the $1,979.00 UTO gift is listed separately on page 28 but is included in community outreach on page 43.

It is also unhelpful that the Outreach Fund and ECW accounting for fund raisers is done differently. In the Outreach Fund accounting, the net revenue from fund raisers is reported; one cannot learn how much it cost to stage the fund raisers. ECW, on the other hand, reports gross receipts and event expenses, thus providing a more transparent picture of its activities.

In the Operating Fund accounting, I cannot fail to mention the item titled “Mandated Outreach Commission.” The label is misleading in two ways. First, there is no “commission” involved here, no group of parishioners lead by a Vestry member overseeing funds to be spent. More significantly, however, the money we pay to the diocese, to The Episcopal Church, and to the Growth Fund, is, as the title suggests, mandatory. Additionally, it is not outreach, but necessary overhead required to run a national church. Paying to run the diocesan office is no more outreach than is paying to run the parish office. We pay into the Growth Fund because doing so is required to get loans from the fund, a service we continue to use.

As if to emphasize that our payments to the diocese are not the result of our beneficence, Bob Johnston’s treasurer’s report on page 13 contains this information and commentary:

As stated above, Diocesan Council reduced our assessment, based on an appeal request of $6,000. However, as we get closer to the end of the year, we realized that we needed to request a higher reduction, due to our lagging revenues. In the end, the Diocese granted a reduction of approximately $10,500. Thanks be to God!

Thanks be to God, indeed! It is embarrassing that one of the biggest parishes in the diocese feels compelled to plead for dispensations from the diocese while less well endowed parishes often struggle to pay their full assessments. The formula for computing assessments is based on income for the past three years, which is intended to compensate for the fact that parish income both increases and decreases. If St. Paul’s cannot pay its full assessment, perhaps our budgeting—and especially our spending—needs some rethinking.