Dear St. William Parishioner,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I pray that during these holy days you have had a restful and joyous time with your families, but also a time of reflection on the greatest gift God has given us in His Jesus Christ.
As we start the year, we are submitting our 2021-2022 annual financial report for St. William. In this report, you will find a snapshot of how your generosity has supported our parish. One point I would like to highlight is the surplus appearing in last year’s budget. This surplus was gained by us not fully staffing our parish, as we lost our education building to the hail storm, and our parish was in the process of transitioning to full operations after nearly two years of working through the pandemic. That surplus was gained by the vacant staff positions, which include salaries, insurance, and benefits.
For the current fiscal year, the finance council and I have budgeted a deficit the equivalent of our surplus. These past two budgets have been difficult to ascertain as we are still transitioning out of the pandemic with fewer parishioners than our pre-pandemic numbers, which has led to smaller collections. I am being as frugal as possible; as such, we will not have the same number of staff as prior to the pandemic and we are always looking for ways to cut costs, which can be difficult in the current financial climate. Just like our parish families feel the crunch of inflation, our parish feels the same pressure on a grand scale.
Furthermore, there are various maintenance concerns that we are working on and will continue to work on. For example, we just replaced the HVAC system for our sanctuary space which cost us nearly $300,000. Thankfully, your generous donations to the Diocesan campaign, Encountering Christ, from which 30% was returned to Saint William, covered the cost of that expense. There are approximately 12 more air conditioners that we will be replacing over the next few years as our older units are phased out, and parts and freon are no longer found. We also have been working on landscape and irrigation issues, repainting and refinishing our doors and walls in our 10 buildings the parish maintains. We have a large andbeautiful campus to maintain and we are working hard to preserve its beauty for the glory of God and all those who attend our parish.
I would like to conclude by saying thank you for your generosity to our parish throughout the year. We need 100% of our families to support our St. William community so that we can continue the work of building the Kingdom of God here on earth. It takes all of us praying, serving, and giving to have a parish that people can have a transformational encounter with Jesus Christ, who is the reason for the season we celebrate. May God bless you and family this new year, and always.
If you have any questions, my door is always open—I am at your service.
Ad Jesum per Mariam,
Fr. Francisco Rodriguez III