Minutes of the Parish Finance Council

Guardian Angels Catholic Church

January 20, 2010

7:00 pm

In attendance:  Jim Stevenson, Chair; Jim Wazlawik, Vice-Chair; Denny Farrell, Parish Administrator; Kathy Konrad; Mike Robertson; Dave Schiltgen; Maria Westfall; and Craig Johnson, Trustee.  Absent: Father Bill Martin, Tim Ryan, John Charpentier, and Charlie Nestor.

Chairman Stevenson introduced our newest member, Maria Westfall to the membership.  Maria is replacing her husband, Dr. Mike Westfall who has completed his term on the Finance Council and as Parish Trustee.

Maria Westfall read the prayer and the December minutes were approved by consensus.

Scorecard

   Denny Farrell reviewed the Scoreboard through January 20, 2010.  Collections through 29 weeks of FY 2010 are $58K favorable thanks to an influx of payments in stock received in December fulfilling 2009 pledges through December.  The Christmas collection remains just over $3K short of the budget.  Denny anticipates additional dollars to trickle in during January.

Over $1,100 has been contributed so far toward Haitian relief.  The Haiti relief collection will be formally held on Feb 6-7.

Financial Statements 

  The checking account balance is at a new high thanks to the aforementioned December receipts.  The last bell tower payment of $16k, baptismal font payment of $12k and the Feb 1 payroll of $30k and mortgage payment of $11K will all be covered from this balance. Overall, the balance sheet is in good shape.  There is an error in the 12/31/08 balance in account 1062-Fr. Mile Life Insurance.  The amount reflected does not reflect the reduction in 4^th Q 2008 values.  The account was not revalued until Jan 2009.  The December 2009 P&L reflects our improved financial performance, particularly the weekly Collections, Little Angels pre-school, cemetery operations, reduced payroll, and Peter O’Neill Hall rentals.

LOGOS Conversion

 The first LOGO generated payroll has been completed, but not without some glitches.  The collapse of the Minnesota/Wisconsin reciprocity agreement was not well defined in the system and required special attention.  Denny indicated that we will do at least 2 additional payrolls before deciding to permanently use LOGOS or return to a 3^rd party payroll provider such as ADP.

The January financials are still being processed in Quick Books since the P&L chart of accounts mapping is not yet complete.  We will run parallel for at least 2 months before going solo with LOGOS.  The ACS files with GA giving history have all been converted to LOGOS.

Denny, Linda, and Connie will be attending the LOGOS report writing class during the 1^st week of February.

Roof funds investment

As a brief update following our last Finance Council meeting, Jim Stevenson, Jim Wazlawik Tom Kindler met with Steve Madsen from Lake Elmo Bank yesterday to discuss investment options for our $150,000.  Currently, interest rates are at very low levels and there are no good options for investing our money in a safe instrument and receiving any appreciable interest on the investment.  We discussed several options including laddering short and medium term (two year) instruments.  The conclusion we reached was to recommend to the Finance Council that we leave our funds in the current Money Market account which yields .9% annual interest and that we monitor the market each quarter for an increase in overall rates at which time we can explore moving into longer term instruments.

Stewardship Campaign

  Denny provided a recap of the 2009/2010 campaign.  Total pledges through January 20^th equal $1,204,963 compared to 2009 pledges of $1,295,358.  Actual giving in 2009 was $1,397,722, and included $130k from 2009 pledgers who have not yet pledged in 2010.  In addition, we received $120k from non pledgers in 2009.  Denny and staff are following up with the 181 families who pledged in 2009, but have not pledged in 2010 as well as the 275 donors from 2009 who did not pledge in either 2009 or 2010.  An analysis of January and February 2010 contributions and follow-ups for the above two groups will be completed prior to determining potential dollars available for FY 2011 budgets. 

New Meeting Night

   We will meet on the 3^rd Wednesday of the month during 2010 beginning with next month’s meeting on February 17^th (Ash Wednesday).

Respectfully Submitted,

Jim Wazlawik, Acting Secretary

Finance Council, Guardian Angels Catholic Community