The proposed budget for the new fraternal year was discussed in detail, but not voted on at the July 7, 2021 business meeting.
The vote will be held at our next meeting on July 28. Approval of the budget will enable us to begin paying bills.
The budget proposes spending $55,752 on expected revenues of $55,753. The projected surplus is 34 cents.
Your $36 in annual dues will produce up to $9,828 of our revenues, of which we pay a per capita fee of $9.50 to Supreme and $4 to the state Knights organization. That’s a combined $3,685.50 that goes to Supreme in New Haven and to our state council even though we continue to have many members in arrears on their dues.
In the last fraternal year our council ran a deficit of $18,369.89.
Much of that red ink was because of the pandemic, which has been a challenge for nonprofits all over the nation. The Virginia Knights of Columbus reported that donations to KOVAR, our statewide charity that assists the intellectually disabled, dropped from an annual average of around half a million dollars to $287,000 in the year ended June 30, 2020. ( https://kovarva.org/council-information/ ) The reason is simple: The pandemic prevented Knights from standing outside stores soliciting donations.
Our council decided to donate the $4,100 that we have been averaging in recent years to continue our support for KOVAR even though we did not solicit individual donations. This fraternal year we expect to return to solicitations for KOVAR. We have permission from the parish to solicit in the parish bulletin and on the parish website for electronic donations with a QR code. We will donate only what we raise this fraternal year.
Another source of our deficit was two donations of $2,000 last year and $3,000 earlier this year to help sustain the St. Timothy Golf tournament. The second donation of $3,000 was for the tournament this coming September. We hope the tournament can be self sustaining going forward.
In addition to those two expenditures that totaled $9,100, another $5,000 of our deficit can be attributed to our donation to help purchase an ultrasound machine for the Mother of Mercy clinic in Manassas. Bishop Burbridge will dedicate that machine on July 20 at 4 p.m. Our donation specifically went to our brother Knights at St. Andrews parish who coordinated the fundraising and applied for matching funds from Supreme.
We are beginning the new fraternal year with a total of $39,406.30 in our four bank accounts at PNC Bank, compared to the $57,776.19 on July 1, 2020.
If we run similar deficits over the next two years, we will start the 2023-24 fraternal year with only $2,666 in all of our accounts. That is obviously not a sustainable trajectory and we need to return to a balanced budget or a nearly balanced one.
We are starting the new fraternal year with $26,584.74 in our general fund, which was formerly called our capital fund and had been reserved over the years for the eventual acquisition of a council building. As recently as March 2018 that account totaled $58,360. Last July it stood at $41,571.70. I propose that we stop using it as an overdraft account and use it for major capital projects such as the $5,000 that we gave to our brothers at the Father Cilinski Council last year for the purchase of the ultrasound machine.
Supreme doesn’t want councils to buy or build their own building. The folks in New Haven want us to focus on helping our parish, local Catholic organizations and our community. We have done that and should continue to do it by spending our reserves on a prudent, judicious basis.
However, our operating account starts the new fraternal year at only $2,968.89. That will not be enough to sustain council operations until our Christmas tree and Christmas card sales begin in late November. So a transfer will be needed from the general fund at some point in the coming months. I hope that we can return that money after the revenue comes into our operating account from tree sales and card sales.
So where will our revenue come from in this new fraternal year? We are one of only a handful of councils in the state of Virginia that generate this much revenue without the help of a bingo hall or owning our own building that can be rented out.
Our biggest fundraiser is Christmas tree sales which we are projecting to produce $20,500 under the council section of our budget. The stay-at-home environment caused by the pandemic helped our 2020 tree sales and we sold out very early. We remain bullish about our expected 2021 sales. The trees cost us $11,370 last year and we spent about $1,400 on the tree lot for a new chain saw, LED lights and other equipment that will be usable in the coming years. We have budgeted for $500 a combination of tree lot expenses and any price increase in the cost of trees this coming winter.
We also project $3,600 in revenue from Christmas cards and advent wreaths and candles; $2,200 from Brunswick stew sales on Superbowl weekend; and $2,200 from a new fundraiser that will close a projected budget gap.
Revenues from operations include $9,828 in dues from 273 members, $225 from a projected 10 new members, and $750 from the Penny Per Knight Per Day program which goes to support of vocations. ( https://vakofc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Website-Narrative-PKD.pdf )
Expected revenues from church activities include $2,000 in donations from our monthly coffee and donuts that will offset most of the cost, $400 from a break-even parish breakfast in January and $2,400 from six Lenten meals.
The $4,000 expected from KOVAR will all go to this state charity as will the expected $1,150 from our new Polar Plunge event which is the major source of funding for Special Olympics in our state. ( https://vakofc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Website-Narrative-2020-Polar-Plunge.pdf ). Our brother Knight Eric Latcheran alone raised $1,000 for the Pola Plunge earlier this year so this projection is realistic.
We are expecting a $500 reimbursement from Supreme under their Food for Families program as a partial offset for the cost of our monthly food donation at St. Vincent de Paul.
On the expense side, we will pay $1,555 for liability insurance that includes a $300 rider for serving alcohol at some of our events and will pay a $1,000 stipend to our new financial secretary Dave Wendell who plans to absorb many of his record keeping expenses out of his stipend. David recently began serving a three-year term and is a retired government contractor with a financial background who was approved by Supreme. Until David’s appointment, our council went more than a year without anyone serving in this critical position.
Our charitable work is our No.1 priority and we will continue to make a $300 monthly commitment to food purchases for the parish’s St. Vincent de Paul food pantry, a $150 monthly commitment to purchasing food for the cloistered Dominican nuns in Linden, Va. and a $300 annual donation for the purchase of bingo prizes for the residents of the local Manor Care Nursing Home.
The council will spend up to $650 for our annual Seniors Thanksgiving Dinner the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving. In 2020 we gave away 220 meals with the help of our brother Knights from St. Andrew’s Parish and more than a dozen students from Paul VI High School at a pickup spot in the parking lot. Some of those same high school students help unload our Christmas trees. Included in those meals were about 50 that were delivered to the Forest Glen senior citizens complex in Sully Station by our brother Knights.
Here’s a list of more of our proposed charitable donations:
$1,000 for the Brain Foundation of Fairfax, a Centreville-based nonprofit that purchases and operates group homes for the mentally ill. Our brother Knight Ted Moriak is a member of the board of directors. ( https://www.brain-foundation.org/index.html )
$500 for the Paul Stefan Foundation which is partly named to honor our former parish priest Father Stefan Starzynski, who is currently a chaplain at Fairfax Hospital. This foundation runs group homes for expectant mothers. ( https://www.paulstefanhome.org/donate )
$500 for our parish’s American Heritage Girls;
$500 for a scholarship in support of our parish’s Challenge girls club;
$500 for a scholarship in support of our parish’s Conquest boys club;
$500 for VKCCI, which a statewide charity run by the Virginia Knights of Columbus to assist our members who are in financial distress ( https://vkcci.org/ ) ;
$100 for the Father Bader Scholarship Fund that awards scholarships to high school seniors. Here’s the form to apply: ( https://vakofc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fr.-Bader-Applicant-Family-Info-Form-1-2022.pdf );
We also have set aside $100 for a truck rental as part of the Halloween for the Hungry program which the parish school is running this year. That program raises food donations that are driven to a food pantry in West Virginia. We will increase that budget line if more money is needed. The U-Haul store in Chantilly generously absorbed most of the cost truck rental last year and we expect them to do so again.
We have a $500 contingency account for situations such as that, as well as sudden requests for additional donations.
We have budgeted $500 for a parish reception after the first Mass of Deacon Daniel Rice, a parishioner who is scheduled to be ordained a priest in June. Len Rice, his father, is a longtime member of our council. Daniel will be the third person connected to our council to be ordained a priest. We have held these receptions in the past for newly ordained priests and deacons who are members of our parish. They include Past Grand Knight Tom Yehl’s son Tom, who is assigned to Blessed Sacrament Parish in Alexandria ( https://blessedsacramentcc.org/staff/rev-thomas-yehl-y-a/ ), and Father Luke Dundon, a longtime member of our council who was a member of our Squires group many years ago. Luke is a military chaplain at the U.S. Naval Academy assigned to the Fourth Battalion ( https://www.usna.edu/Chaplains/Contact_Us/4thBattalionChaplain.php )
We also have budgeted $300 for a reception after a memorial Mass for the first annual feast of Blessed Michael McGivney, which will be Aug. 13. Father McGivney was beatified last October ( https://www.kofc.org/en/news-room/articles/blessed-michael-mcgivney-beatified.html ).
Other major expenses include the $1,000 deficit we expect to run from monthly coffee and donuts after the Sunday morning Masses, and the $1,500 cost of our monthly council socials and Christmas party.
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