St Dennis Parish School Tuition Meeting February 23, 2005

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St Dennis ParishSchool Tuition MeetingFebruary
23, 2005

• Finance Commission membership
• Bill Wheeler, pastoral council president
• Don Paulson, pastoral council member
• Brian Burant CPA
• Ed Drake CFP
• Peter Oettinger CPA
• Craig Uselman CPA, pastoral council member
• Tom Krajewski
• John Thompson

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School Finance Discussion

• Presentation
• Asking for what we need
• Charts on School Costs and Revenues
• Recommendations
• Open Discussion

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Ask for what you need Matt 77-11

• St Dennis challenges
• We MUST ask for substantially more support both
  from school parents and general parishioners
• School parents challenges
• Difficulty with ability to increase giving
• W W J D? We have always been fair will be now
• Bring your financial information (paycheck) and
  talk privately with Father Schmitt
• We expect more people to ask for and receive some
  Tuition Assistance Grants
• Difficulty with willingness to increase giving
• the worker deserves his wages Luke 102-7

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Sources of School Support

• The following slide shows
• the percent of school costs covered by various
  funding sources - for 7 local schools and the
  nationwide Catholic elementary school averages
• In descending order by from Tuition and Fees
• Shows the number of pupils at each local school
  notice the three smallest schools are at the
  bottom?
• Data is from latest Diocesan report and National
  Catholic Education Association (who sampled 1 of
  every 6 schools incl Maria Goretti)
• Observations
• Parents contribute 35.5 of St Dennis costs
  through tuition fees
• Parents deserve a nod for contributing more than
  Tuition Fees plus net fundraising they paid
  most of the gross fundraising, too
• But even with fees and fundraising proceeds, St
  Dennis school is getting only 41.3 of its costs
  from parents
• 55.6 of school funding comes from the parish
  (per our own schools numbers as reported to the
  Diocese)
• National averages are 61 tuition fees and 22
  parish support

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Catholic School Costs

• On the next slide, the same schools are shown
  again, as NCEA does not report on costs (probably
  due to variability in classification making it
  less meaningful)
• In descending order by the sum of Salaries plus
  FICA/benefits
• The left side of the scale starts at 60 (to zoom
  in on the detail)
• St Dennis appears to hold the line well on
  salaries and benefits, no doubt due to the fact
  that we pay only 50 of health costs and just a
  3 retirement rate (vs St James at 100 and 6
  respectively)
• Maintenance, Utilities and Other costs do not
  appear to be a problem
• Immaculate Hearts salaries and benefits are over
  90 of costs?

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Per-Pupil Expense and Tuition

• Following slide shows schools current school
  year budget figures
• In descending order by per-pupil expense
• NCEA regional averages are used (WI, IL, OH, MI,
  IN) which are lower than national averages and
  more comparable to us
• However, regional averages are for 2002-2003
  school year two years older than the local
  schools figures, so jack them up in your mind
• Base tuition is for parishioners first child,
  and local schools tuition range within a 400
  range of each other the only reasonable basis
  to compare tuition rates between schools
• All local schools tuition rates are below the
  2-year old regional average base tuition of 2025
  (St Dennis is 417 below it)
• Per-pupil expense ranges almost 2000 due to
  economies of scale and other factors
• Again notice the three smallest schools are
  together with highest per-pupil expense, lacking
  those economies of scale
• Spread 100,000 of cost to 483 Queen of Peace
  students 207 each
• Spread 100,000 of cost to 139 IHM students 719
  each

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Tuition Revenue Tuition Rates

• The following slide shows just the local schools
  base tuition rates (as in the last slide) along
  with the non-parishioner rate and the calculated
  average tuition revenue per pupil
• In descending order by average tuition revenue
• The first three schools shown have average
  tuition revenue greater than base tuition, due to
  significant non-parishioner tuition revenue
• The rest have lower average tuition revenue than
  base tuition rate, due to these factors
• Little or no higher-rate non-parishioner tuition
  revenue
• Discounts offered on tuition for second and third
  children in a family
• Uncollected tuition
• Of the three smallest schools, only St James has
  average revenue higher than base due to
  non-parishioner tuition revenue
• In the Diocesan report, Maria Goretti showed
  significant grant revenue, which offset
  significant student services costs, which may
  affect the average tuition revenue shown for them
• Otherwise, Immaculate Heart and St Dennis again
  bring up the extreme end of the chart

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Parish Support Paid for Each Family

• The next slide shows the parish subsidy by
  number of registered children in the current
  school year
• Even Non-Parishioner families charged 3216 per
  child pay less than it costs to educate their
  children
• The average parish support per pupil is about
  2500
• Amounts come from the General Fund, the Endowment
  Fund (about 20,000) and Tuition Assistance
  Grants for those unable to pay in full
• This slide focuses on the benefit to each family
  what was on an earlier slide at the macro level
  how 55.6 of school expenses are paid by parish
  support and 3.6 by other sources
• Parishioners whose first child started at St
  Dennis by 1999 are Grandfathered into a more
  generous tuition discount scale in exchange for
  promises to do aggressive fundraising

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Contributions by St Dennis Families

• This slide shows
• school family contributions to the general fund
  for the calendar year 2004
• No identifying information was gathered by the
  committee to compile this information, but rather
  parish staff in charge of envelopes gave us this
• Observations
• 23 families donated nothing at all
• 8 families donating nothing are not even
  registered as parishioners but are paying reduced
  parishioner tuition rates
• Another 27 families gave less than 100 each for
  the year 2004
• 16 families gave more than 1000
• Other relevant information
• The highest contributing families still did not
  pay equal to the 2440 support paid by St Dennis
  Parish for a family with one child in school
• Conclusion
• Though of course all school families are fully
  part of the parish, analysis shows no school
  family pays more than it gets

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Contributions by St Dennis Families

• This slide shows
• total cumulative calendar year 2004 contributions
  by all school families, ranked in order from the
  least contributed to the most
• Its as if you lined everyone up according to how
  much they gave and kept a running tally of the
  groups giving.
• Observations
• The 80 lowest contributing families donated a
  combined total of 8000, which is only enough to
  pay the parish support for ONE school family with
  three children
• The total contributed to the parish General Fund
  for all families in 2004 was less than 55,000 or
  a little more than net proceeds from fundraising
  efforts
• What other parishes do
• Blessed Sacrament reported to the Diocese they
  set a tithe of 780 to qualify for parishioner
  tuition rates.
• The Queen of Peace parish tithe is 960 to
  qualify there
• (Tithe comes from ten and originally meant
  giving 10 of your income to Church)
• Conclusions
• If a 780 tithe had been required at St Dennis
  111 of 129 parish families (86) would NOT have
  qualified for parishioner tuition rates
• If a 780 tithe had been required at St Dennis,
  the 45 lowest contributing families COMBINED
  would not have qualified for parishioner tuition
  rates for ONE of those families

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Total School Costs Tuition Base Calculation
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Funding of Instructional Materials2005-2006
Budget
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Ideas

• Cost related
• Short-term, consider combining grade-levels where
  enrollment warrants
• Cost per pupil will decrease if we can increase
  class size
• Long-term, investigate consolidating with IHM,
  adding preschool, and/or dropping middle school
  grades
• Revenues Fundraising
• Encourage continuation of the excellent
  fundraising efforts
• Recruit parishioner donations to the endowment
  fund, especially those that take advantage of
  available corporate matching funds
• Revenues Parishioner Non-Parishioner Tuition
• Raise tuition by 260 to 1868 for the 2005-2006
  school year
• Recruit more pupils, including higher-rate
  non-parishioners
• Establish at least a 10 per week tithe for
  parishioner tuition rate
• Offer parents the FACTS automatic payment program
  for tuition
• Revenues Peace and Justice Considerations
• Encourage Tuition Assistance Grants for those who
  need them
• Keep Tuition Assistance Grants confidential, and
  fair with standards
• Promote parish sponsorship of Tuition Assistance
  Grants
• Review the multi-child tuition discount scales

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Ask for what you need Matt 77-11

• St Dennis challenges
• We MUST ask for substantially more support both
  from school parents and general parishioners
• School parents challenges
• Difficulty with ability to increase giving
• W W J D? We have always been fair will be now
• Bring your financial information (paycheck) and
  talk privately with Father Schmitt
• We expect more people to ask for and receive some
  Tuition Assistance Grants
• Difficulty with willingness to increase giving
• the worker deserves his wages Luke 102-7