From the Pastor's Desk | October 8, 2023

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
 
It is my pleasure to submit to you the annual report for St. Martha Parish and School. Before I write anything further, let me offer words of thanks first to you - the parishioners. Thank you for your prayerfulness and devotion to Christ and His Church. Christ has given us a mission, and so Bishop Boyea, in his 2012 pastoral letter, has rightly called on us to, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” In order to do so, we must first be a community of prayer devoted to Christ profoundly present among us in the Eucharist. He is in our midst, and we must remain close to Him!
 
Thank you for your past and continued generosity. Your generosity is a tangible manifestation of your faith. Without your continued generosity, we would not be able to continue on the path of mission.

It is important to recognize the debt of gratitude that we owe Fr. Mike Murray, Don Morgan, Jackie Rosalez, Hallie Card, Andrea Patton, Cynthia Farnsworth, Tony and Marie Andorfer, Joey DiMenno, Claudia Fountain, Claire Boomer, IvyLynn Olson, Gregg Alchin, Sam Matias, our dedicated teaching faculty, all our staff, volunteers, and catechists. Without them, we would not accomplish much. I am grateful for each one of them and the roles they have played or continue to play here at St. Martha Parish and School. I wish I could convey my gratitude adequately in narrative form, but I simply cannot.

It is also important to recognize and thank the many volunteers who serve on our Finance Council, Accounts Receivable Team, Accounts Payable Team, and Monday morning count teams. Thank you to our outgoing Finance Council Chair, Ron Lenz, and to our incoming Chair, Gigi Matias. Thank you to our diocesan accountant, Christine Bradley. Your counsel, support, and dedication, both to me and to the parish, is incredible, and I remain grateful.

In this report, you will certainly find numbers, but I think you will also find something more than numbers. As a trained accountant and auditor, I believe numbers tell a story. This report contains the story of our parish. This report will show how far we have come as a community of believers who choose to lean into faith, hope, and love - those three portals of God’s grace. This report will show where we are here and now, and it will begin to lay out where we want to move into the future.
 
I have not been here long, but I am proud to be here! I am proud of this community and, as I preached a number of weeks ago, I want us to be a community that dreams big! The words of St. Martha are our words - Yes, Lord. We believe! Let us be a community of prayer, a people devoted to Christ in the Eucharist, and people who are on mission to, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!”

Some highlights from the Fiscal Year 2023 financial report itself: 

• Overall, income exceeded expenses by $77,675.
• You will note that total actual income exceeded budgeted income by $214,276 which is great news! However, let me point out that actual offertory giving was less than what was budgeted by approximately $32,325. Why? While the budgeted number was accurate based on trends, we are still coming out of the pandemic and are now experiencing historic inflation. Things are tight for everyone.
• Auction revenue, generous donors to the Affordable Tuition Fund, and ‘other income’ helped offset the negative budget to actual variance in offertory giving.
• Our total expenses exceeded budgeted expenses by approximately $136,598. Simply put, things are more expensive than they were a year prior. Fr. Mike Murray and Don Morgan did an excellent job keeping spending low so as not to put stress on the parish or its balance sheet.
• We did not have any large capital expenditures in fiscal year 2022-23.
• Our balance sheet remains strong with over $2.6 million in assets and only $173,684 in liabilities consisting of accrued payroll and benefits, prepaid tuition, funds due to St. Vincent de Paul, and a small amount due to our former custodial service and the missions. The reported liabilities are either normal end of year accruals or normal for parish operations and have subsequently been paid. 

We will see some challenges in this new fiscal year, and I will briefly explain them below: 

• Historic inflation remains a reality and a concern.
• Federal funding related to pandemic relief has ceased, and we will likely not see federal grants or funding specifically for pandemic relief in the future. 
• Two large contracts were entered into early in fiscal year 2023-24 related to custodial work and facilities maintenance which exceeded what was budgeted. These two ongoing expenditures are necessary, and the work being done, thus far, exceeds expectations.
• Removing affordability as a barrier to Catholic education will always prove to be a challenge given the investment we are making in the school with affordable tuition.
• Necessary security and safety upgrades to the school and church building will likely prove expensive and may lead to a decision by the Finance Council to pay for them out of savings.

For the last five years, we have made a decision to remove affordability as a barrier to Catholic education. This is an investment in the future - the future of the Church and the future of society. In his Declaration on Christian Education, Pope Paul VI “recalls to pastors of souls their most serious obligation to see to it that all the faithful, but especially the youth who are the hope of the Church, enjoy [a] Christian education” (par. 2). The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in their document Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium reminds all of us, 
 
For these reasons, I believe the decision to invest in Catholic education remains the right decision. I also believe it is important for you to know how much of an investment we are making. The cost to educate one student in our parish school is approximately $8,000 whereas our tuition rate for Catholic families is $1,000. While that may appear shocking, the investment has worked for five years! That is amazing news, and it is a testament to the community of St. Martha Parish! Congratulations on making Catholic education available, affordable, and accessible in our area! I am incredibly thankful for your generosity in making this investment possible and real. I am also incredibly thankful to our dedicated and highly qualified teaching faculty, staff, and volunteers and the leadership of our outstanding principal, Mrs. Andrea Patton. 

Our investment in Catholic education is not exclusive to the school. We remain one family - one parish. Our faith formation program is second to none! Our faith formation program assists parents in educating their children in the Catholic faith through Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, sacramental preparation, religious education, liturgical formation, and sacramental worship including Sunday and weekday Mass. I am proud of our Director of Faith Formation, Mrs. Jackie Rosalez, and her highly competent and faithful team of catechists and volunteers! 
 
Our investment in Catholic education makes offertory and recurring giving to the parish all the more important. I recognize, because things are more expensive, personal and family budgets are tighter than they have been. Please recognize so too is the parish’s budget. If you can find it within your means to increase your personal giving to the parish by 3% - 8%, it would help tremendously so that we can continue our efforts investing in Catholic education now and into the future. If you can find it within your means to make a substantially larger gift to the Affordable Tuition Fund, we would be most grateful. If you are not tithing, then I humbly ask you to prayerfully consider what you might be able to give and to sign up for online recurring giving through ParishSoft Giving. St. Peter exhorts each one of us, “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace" (1 Peter 4:10).

Your investment in the parish helps us do even more to, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” Evangelization and Youth Ministry are two key areas where your generosity will help greatly. We have big ideas to help evangelize those around us - those we long to be sitting next to us in the pews at Mass. We have big ideas to draw more youth into a relationship with each other and Jesus Christ. We cannot do this work without your help and your generosity. 
 
Now, I realize that some might tell me that we should just raise tuition to help take stress off the budget. I do not think that is necessarily the answer. I think that is the easy answer. Rather, if we are good stewards, both personally and as a parish, then this investment can continue to work. It will, however, require substantial generosity from you - the parishioners. It will not work if we are not united and invested together. As always, budgets simply come down to income and expenses. As we move through the remainder of the current fiscal year, we are actively monitoring income and expenses and, as we do, we continue to study our current tuition model in consultation with the Finance Council and diocesan leadership, particularly the Office of Catholic Schools and the Office of Finance.   

I hope you will take time to read through the rest of this report which includes words and stories from faith formation, our school, youth ministry, evangelization, music ministry, and much more! 

Please know of my prayers for you and please continue to pray for me, the staff, and the parish! 

Dream Big and Stay Awesome! 

Fr. Ryan Riley 
Pastor 
 
Download PDF of Annual Report Here