Report from the Treasurer 

Following is a summary of our Budget vs Actual report numbers for the year-to-date through the third quarter ending September 30, 2020:

As you can see from the numbers above, St. Stephen’s is having a good year financially.  Annual Giving has continued to exceed our budget (although this may be a matter of how our monthly allocations are calculated).  Our Diocesan Unit Trust Interest is higher than budgeted and the value of our investment is only $5,000 lower than the same period last year, despite the volatility of the financial markets.  Other than Annual Giving and the DUT Interest, our other operating income (loose plate, etc) has been almost non-existent.  Fortunately, those income categories represent a small percentage of our operating income.  

Regarding operating expenses, our Vestry-approved budget assumed that the Interim Ministry Team would finish their work with St. Stephen’s by the end of June and a new priest would come on board shortly thereafter, during the second half of the year.  The timing didn’t play out exactly as budgeted.  The IMT continued through the beginning of October, and Paul Olsson, our new priest, will join us in the latter part of November.  That means we are experiencing a period of more than a month with no clergy expenses, which is the highest category of our operating expenses.  One thing to be aware of is that the monthly IMT expenses were significantly less than the expenses associated with having a full time priest:  Not only is there a difference in  compensation but there are the additional costs of retirement benefits and medical insurance.   I anticipate that the costs of having a full-time priest may be approximately $50,000 higher than our annualized IMT clergy expenses.   

Other operating expenses in aggregate have been lower this year, due to the church being closed and in-person services having been suspended.  Please note the negative ~$50,000 in the End-of-Year Balance Remaining column.  That number represents the surplus our operating budget anticipates for the year.  For me, that is a soothing number to contemplate, as it is essentially the same as the increase in clergy expenses we anticipate for the following year.  Budgets are not reality – they are a best estimate for a certain period of time, given certain assumptions, but this number points to a hopeful financial near future for St Stephen’s as we ride out this pandemic.  

You’ll notice that non-operating revenues and expenses have no numbers in the budget columns.  We budget for church operations, with the Annual Giving Campaign as the primary source of support for these church expenses.  As to non-operations, the reason we have not usually budgeted for this category is that our expenses are generally project oriented.  Each project needs to have its own source of funding to cover the anticipated expenses before moving forward. 

Though this has been a crazy year by almost all measures and will continue to be for who knows how long, it’s been a remarkably smooth year financially for St. Stephen’s.  I consider that an indication of the spiritual glue that binds us together and motivates us to support the ministry we all share.  

Barbara Stratton, Treasurer