Pledge payments have almost completely caught up to pledges: as of year's end, we have received $96,457.50 in 2011 pledge payments, out of $96,973.00 pledged.  Other unrestricted contributions were above budget for December, but not enough above to compensate for prior months, leaving us $2,696.22 behind budget for the year in general contributions, and $1,341.68 behind budget in total income.

Expenses were $1,625.17 under budget for the month, with most of the real savings in personnel and general maintenance.  With expenses also being under budget for most other months of the year, we finished 2011 with our total expenses $7,221.76 under budget.  This gives us a deficit for the year of $8,239.29, or 3.8% of our income—much less than the $14,119 deficit budgeted, but a significant deficit nonetheless.  I covered this deficit with $10,000 from the general savings account, which now has a balance of just under $4,000.

As of the end of December, we have received 66 pledges totaling $90,496, and 12 "hope to give" estimates totaling $5,362.  At this time last year we had 74 pledges totaling $92,452, and five "hope to give" estimates totaling $3,300, so we are at almost exactly the same level as last year (though with a shift away from actual pledges).  Two years ago, however, we had 82 pledges totaling $104,470, and three years ago we had 92 pledges totaling $112,441.

A draft operating fund budget for 2012 is posted in Trakel Hall.  I have received no feedback from Chapter or other Cathedral members, but have made several "tweaks", based on updated information.  The budgeted deficit is about $1,000 less than that of the previous draft, but is still almost $18,000.  Even with the reallocations of Dean's sabbatical subaccount and the Jewson subaccount (approved earlier by Chapter), our available money market funds can cover about half (at most) of this deficit; the rest will almost certainly have to come from our main investment funds, which will permanently reduce our investment income in future years.  [Afterword: This budget was approved without further modification by Chapter at its January meeting. —RCW]

Budget Summary