The Deficit

One of the easiest ways to measure our deficit is to look at how much money was drawn each year from our other funds: the Remembrance Fund and Operating Reserve before the 2016 transfers, and the new Combined Fund after that.

Unquestionably the deficit has grown. But the numbers have been erratic. The presence or absence of assistant clergy obviously has an impact on the expenses so, for the sake of fairness, I'll try to include that in the information.

For example, in 2003, 2004 and 2005 we pulled $95,000, $145,000 and $80,000 respectively. Fr. Code seems to have arrived sometime in 2003 and left around the middle of 2005. In 2006 we pulled only $25,000. That appears to be the lowest number this century. The pulls rose to $45,000 in 2007.

Mother Ann arrived in late 2008 and left in mid 2012. We pulled in the range of $155,000 to $200,000 during this period. We pulled about $185,000 in 2013, with Fr. Graves arriving late that year.

All Souls' and the diocese shared Fr. Graves expenses during this three year period he was with us. Even so, we pulled $205,000 and $212,000 in 2014 and 2015. Fr. Graves left Caroline in mid 2016 but we still pulled a bit over $200,000 that year.

Since then, even with no assistant clergy, we pulled $176,000 in 2017 and $170,000 in 2018. Compare 2017 and 2018 with the pulls in 2006 and 2007, the last full years that there was no assistant clergy.

We are on about the same track for 2019. The above captures why we are depleting our savings so quickly--and the "pot" from which we are drawing includes funds that were donated for Churchyard, Remembrance, Organ and Building Fund purposes without regard to those stated purposes.

Simply unsustainable and simply wrong.