Today’s Parish E-mails

I was pleased to get the timely e-mail notice from St. Paul’s today announcing the name of the new senior warden and Vestry election winners. (It was not a surprise that the four people running for four positions were all elected, of course.)

I was a bit surprised that Carl Kylander has been named as the new senior warden, not because of any lack of faith in Carl, but because he is often out of town on business. (Apparently, that is why, when he was junior warden last year, we also had an assistant junior warden.) Perhaps this really isn’t a problem, however. Whereas the junior warden often needs to be on-site to deal with building issues, the senior warden functions more in a consulting role, something that can be done by telephone, e-mail, or other electronic communications.

I had just finished reading the aforementioned e-mail message when another missive from St. Paul’s showed up in my inbox. This message, once again, was dealing with foul weather problems. I thought this message was actually rather clever—St. Paul’s will simply follow whatever policy is implemented by the Mt. Lebanon School District. But, it would have been helpful to have mentioned in the message where to find the decision made by Mt. Lebanon Schools. Not all Mt. Lebanon residents and few non-residents are used to checking whether the Mt. Lebanon schools are open, closed, or opening late.

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.

Pray for the Pickerings

I understand that the Pickerings have the misfortune to be in Egypt now. This is obviously bad timing. Pray for their safe return.

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 6

Although it would be a big task for me to try to put the annual report on-line without access to the original file(s), I can put up the brochure about the Vestry candidates. The candidates, by the way, are Michele D. Baum (running again after completing a one-year term, Paul Barker, Frank Horrigan, and Sandy Ludman.

Click here to see the brochure.