As some of you may know, St. Richard’s Catholic Church’s operating budget has been running as a deficit budget for a number of years. In recent years, we have made up the difference by withdrawing from our parish reserves. This financial shortfall has nothing to do with the recent Capital Campaign. That designated money will be used to update and repair the building exclusively as laid out in the campaign case statement.
We have taken a number of steps to reduce operating costs already. We are reducing the use of air conditioning and are carefully cutting back on daily expenses and program costs where it makes sense to do so. And while these have helped the bottom line, they are not a long term solution.
We, as a parish, need to decide how we want to address this situation. We can each try to increase our Sunday giving, or parish leadership can make significant reductions in our expenses. The Finance Council does not believe that cutting additional expenses is in the best interests of the parish long term, nor do we believe that is what the parish wants. The weekend of June 18/19, a member of the Finance Council will speak at all Masses to address these concerns.
Thank you for your ongoing support of the mission of St. Richard’s Catholic Church.