St. Anastasia Roman Catholic Church
From the Business Manager’s Office

Here we are in December already, anticipating and doing all the fun Christmas things! This is a perfect time to consider the many options for year-long and year-end giving:

• Make a donation of recyclable paper to the Paper Retrievers in the parking lot. Acceptable items include newspapers, inserts, catalogues, magazines, and office/school papers (no phone books or cardboard). St. Anastasia receives a per ton donation for your trash – how cool is that?
• Shop Kroger and designate St. Anastasia on your Kroger Rewards account. St. Anastasia will receive a donation for each dollar you purchase – at no cost to you!! It takes a few moments online or at the service desk to make St. A the beneficiary.
• Use Good Search and Good Shop while searching and shopping online. St. Anastasia receives one-cent for each search; shop on Good Shop and St. A receives a percentage of your purchase. All at NO cost to you!
• Taxpayers age 70 1/2 or older can make a tax-free distribution from an IRA of up to $100,000. The distribution must be a direct gift from the IRA. These distributions are not subject to charitable contribution percentage limits since they are neither included in gross income nor claimed as a deduction on the taxpayer’s return. The IRA charitable rollover law may provide a very good charitable giving vehicle along with having other benefits. This is currently effective through December 31, 2011.
• Donations of appreciated stock also have positive tax effects. If you give appreciated stock directly to St. A. you avoid the income tax incurred on the gain from the sale. You will also be entitled to a charitable contribution for the fair market value of the stock on the day the charity receives it.

You will find additional information about the Kroger and Good Search programs on the St. Anastasia website (under the Stewardship – Treasure tab). Please consider the other options for year-end donations to St. Anastasia or other charities. You should always consult with your legal, tax and financial advisors before taking advantage of these benefits.

During the nearly three months that I have been on the job, I have been   attending training classes through the Archdiocese. While I have degrees in Accounting and Business Management and I understand generally accepted accounting practices, the AOD methods of accounting are specialized for the church’s use and do not necessarily follow the practices of “normal” businesses. During these classes, I have learned that the AOD is rewriting the accounting policies and procedures. This is a good thing. The last update was provided in 1981 and did not differ from the original drafted in 1931.

I’m Brian Burgin – the new kid on the block. Let me tell you five things you need to know about me:

1. Amy and I have been married 26 years in October. We have three sons: Justin (22) now living and working in Chicago; Mitchell (18) a freshman at Adrian College; and Collin (13) an eighth grader at Our Lady of Sorrows School. We have a mini-dachshund named Murphy who rules the house.

My dear friends in Christ, it is with mixed emotions that I inform you that I will be leaving St. Anastasia as your Business Manager as of Thursday, July 7^th for an opportunity in the business world. My 2+ years here with you have been a blessing and at times a challenge. We’ve been through some interesting issues and situations, and I thank you for letting me serve you. Many things come to mind when I reflect on those 2 years, but what sticks out the most is what a faith-filled community St. Anastasia is. I’ve said many times that St. Anastasia is one of the jewels of the Archdiocese…not just physical plant-wise but parishioner-wise as well. But your greatest asset is  Father J.J. I’m not just blowing smoke because I’m leaving…but if you could all see the hours this man puts in, his pastoral mindset, and his genuine devotion to God 24/7 and you the parishioners, you would realize that he is a very     special and unique priest. Why do you think they keep sending newly ordained here to learn under him—he is the model of what a priest should be—actually what a man should be. Cherish him and love him as he does you.  He is so very proud of St. Anastasia and all of you parishioners. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, or will ever have to do is to leave Father JJ…he has been an inspiration and a friend to me and I will continue to count him among my “special friends”. 

May God bless you all……I remain humbly yours, Franz Hoffer

We continue to have some issues with our HVAC system, but it appears we have it under control. We had one of the units in the Davidson Center go down (we replaced the other one last year) and while it did not need replacing, it did need $800 in repairs and is now up and running efficiently; we still have some issues with the unit on the Rectory but are still in the diagnosis phase on that. In addition we had the large cooler in the Davidson Center in need of repair; the compressor died on us. It actually should have been replaced last year but Bill Scally our maintenance supervisor was able to baby it through another year…unfortunately, there’s nothing left to baby, it just plain died. We had the compressor replaced at a cost of just over $1,000. We had quoted it out and this was the most cost effective and the company that did the repair is local. We always strive to support local businesses whenever we can. Those of you that utilize the kitchen in the Davidson Center, the repairman told us that when taking things out of the large refrigerator, the doors should not be propped open, but closed as quickly as possible. Propping the doors or having them open for long periods of time puts a very high strain on the compressor as it tries to compensate for the loss of cool air…please keep that in mind.

We’d like to send a big “thank you” to Carol Corbin and Chris Elms who work with the Gardening Angels in making our site a showplace. I just love pulling in early in the morning and seeing the bright colors on all the flowers as it gives a good start to the work day. Aside from the beautiful flowers, we were having a real issue with our trees in the parking lot islands. They were bug infested….Chris Elms has been working on that issue for the past couple of years and today, we have beautiful healthy trees that are exhibiting new growth. 

We’re running a bit behind on the paver installation. It was delayed a few weeks due to Art for God’s Sake utilizing the entire complex, but mostly it’s been the rainy weather. I can assure one and all that all the information has been turned in and that we should see installation within 10 to 14 days. 

Well, what’s happened to spring? Seems we completely skipped it and went into summer, a hot summer! Good for riding motorcycles, bad for other things. Truly, it never gets too hot to ride as you always have a nice breeze going past you, around you, and in some instances….through you…but that heat rising from the pavement can be awful hot. The absolute worst is  riding in the rain – so keep sending that hot weather – I can’t get enough of it.

The list of expenses and work involved in putting on Art for God’s Sake is long and included: set up of the temporary walls, special lighting, table covers and treatments, catering for all three days, beverages, Splat Experience, wine tasting, Artist prizes, items for sale, web site activation and maintenance, printing (posters, promotional flyers, etc), Special Event Insurance (the value of the art exhibited was just about ½ million dollars), Liquor License fee, City of Troy permits, musicians, musical composition fee, and incidentals. We still have some monies coming in so the excess cash number will probably go up to some extent but not by too much. The final number of excess cash over expenses – meaning available cash after all expenses covered is $14,454.13 for St. Al’s and St. Anastasia.

Well “Art for God’s Sake” is over and along with it comes a tremendous feeling of satisfaction after two years of hard work by a team that started at zero and brought to fruition a wonderful show. Of course that team would not have gone any place without the leadership and vision of our Pastor, Father J.J. whose vision for an Art Show started the ball rolling. We sincerely hope you enjoyed the show and that you received some inspiration from the art works themselves. I saw many people over the course of the three days become emotional as they contemplated the meaning behind some of the art pieces. The rough numbers in terms of money are in as of this writing and they look good. I prefer not to put those numbers out there at this point, but will have the final numbers for you next week. In retrospect, with all the work put in by all the volunteers, let’s not forget the ultimate planner of this event and through His graces it was a success…GOD!