The landmark Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit has cash reserves for only six to eight weeks of operation and needs a cash infusion of some $200,000 in order to balance the 2009 budget, according to the Very Rev. Scott Hunter, dean of St. Paul’s, who met with diocesan council on May 9.
“I pulled no punches with them,” Dean Hunter told The Living Church. “The cathedral belongs to the entire diocese and we are facing either a hard landing zone or a high mountain, take your pick.”
Dean Hunter said that the cathedral began trying to bring expenses more in line with income about two years ago and that “painful sacrifices” by the entire congregation helped reduce its annual operating budget by $225,000. But the state’s rapidly declining economic situation and the sharp downturn in the financial markets brought the cathedral’s situation to a crisis stage within a relatively short time beginning last fall. The sudden nature of the downturn was the chief reason the cathedral leadership was not able to give diocesan council more advance notice of its plight.
“The gap has to close,” Dean Hunter said. “We will have to identify ways to generate additional revenue because it will be difficult to make more cuts that will have an immediate impact on finances for this year. These decisions will not be made without pain.”
During the past two years, the cathedral eliminated two full-time staff positions and reduced two other full-time positions to part time. When asked during the council meeting if there were more staff cuts that could assist the cathedral in reducing the financial shortfall, Dean Hunter was pessimistic.
“Even if we release people this year, their departure expenses will equal what we would be paying for them for the rest of the year,” he said. “The bottom line is, if this doesn’t happen, my brothers and sisters of council, what are your plans for selling and closing the complex and ceasing the ministry of the cathedral that is 100 years old and is by congregational age, older than the diocese itself?”
More here-
http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/5/23/detroit-cathedral-seeks-prayer-aid-for-financial-plight
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