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November 15, 2017
As of today our St. Bernadette parish consists of 2003 households (that’s 6,303 souls)! We are a growing, vibrant parish. I want to share with you some good news concerning the progress we are making on eliminating our debt.
Back in 2008 we acquired a 10 million dollar bond to fund the building of our parish center and school. Then, in 2013 we took out a $3,250,000 loan to build our church. From 2013 till now we have paid off $3,200,000, virtually eliminating our loan on the church. And this past summer, when we could renegotiate the 10 million dollar bond, we paid off $2,550,000 of it. This is good news!
This means that over the last four years we have paid down our debt by $5,750,000.
Currently our bond debt totals $7,450,000…
SMA is responsible for $3,538,085
St. Bernadette Parish is responsible for $3,911,915
SMA has in savings and cash $1,224,316
St. Bernadette Parish has in savings and cash $793,144
We have renegotiated our bond and our plan is to maintain three years worth of payments on hand at any given time so we maintain a good safety net for our ministries. This is good news.
Here some more good news… the bond interest rate for the past ten years was 4.48%. Last summer we were able to renegotiate this rate down for the next ten years to 2.98%. This means that SMA’s annual interest expense will go from $305,000 to $138,350! This means St. Bernadette’s annual interest expense will go from $151,166 to $67,842! This is a combined annual savings of $249,975 in interest we will no longer have to pay…This is great news!
As you can see we are accomplishing great progress in our goal to become a debt-free parish. Thanks to the generosity of our members and the expertise of our parish leadership we are on the right path. Look at all we are currently accomplishing as a parish; all of our worship, service, formation, and fellowship… all of it while we carry this debt. Imagine what we will be able to do once we become debt-free!!
We are on the right path and I want to encourage all of us to continue to work toward this goal. Our strength as a parish is your intentional discipleship and desire to know and do God’s will. I thank you for your stewardship, and I thank God for allowing me the honor to be your pastor.
Sincerely,
Fr. Jeff Nicolas