With the Finance Council meeting earlier in December, both the Finance Council and I would like to take this week before Christmas to express our heartfelt thanks for your continued generosity to St. John XXIII Parish. Like everyone else, the parish has felt the impact of the pandemic. Through the first four months of our fiscal year, which began July 1, our offertory collection is down 23% from prior year levels. In response, we have made significant cuts in our expenses. Most significantly, we have reduced our personnel-related expenses by about 36% from the prior year levels. Our cost-cutting measures have allowed us to avoid a deficit for the first four months of the fiscal year. We are watching our expenses very closely and making every effort to stretch each dollar we receive as far as possible.
Remarkably, during this same period we are able to report significant progress in reducing our parish debt, which stood at $132,322 on July 1. We have reduced this balance to $53,549 as of the end of November. Again, we offer our heartfelt thanks as this reduction is a direct result of your own commitment and generosity at bringing down the debt. We look forward to retiring the debt completely in 2021.
Of particular concern, however, is the fact that we are still about $77,500 below our goal for the Parish Share Program. If we don’t collect this money by the end of February, we will need to pay the balance from our regular offertory. We appreciate any contributions that will help meet this obligation. There are two ways that you can help: 1) Through the monthly PSP envelope. 2) Giving to the Second Collection on January 16-17 for the Anthony School Programs and DePaul School for Hearing and Speech. Not only is this particular Second Collection worthy of our support, but the amount we raise from this collection is deducted dollar-for-dollar from our PSP goal. We also ask you to consider prioritizing your giving to the PSP collections, over the general offertory and debt reduction collections, if necessary, in order to ensure that we meet our obligation under the PSP. Remember, that your PSP contributions are exempt from assessment in the following year’s PSP program.
We understand the financial difficulties that many are facing at this difficult time. We are very grateful for your continued generosity.