March 10, 2010

Catholic schools to get a change in funding

By John Gleason

The Denver Archdiocese’s Superintendant of Catholic Schools Richard Thompson sat down with the Denver Catholic Register last week to discuss a change in how the archdiocese helps fund the parish schools. The change is related to two funding sources: the Catholic Schools Assistance Fund and the Interparish School Assistance subsidy.

DCR: What is the Catholic Schools Assistance Fund (CSAF)?
Thompson: The fund has been in place for many years. It is a means for parishes to provide financial support for Catholic schools.

DCR: How does it work?
Thompson:  It is predicated on the assessable income of parishes, determined by the Office of Parish Finance.  The amount of the tax has been 1.5 percent.

DCR: What will it change to?
Thompson: The change taking place is that the 1.5 percent will now be 3.79 percent.  That increase replaces another type of funding that was present in our Catholic schools called the Interparish School Assistance (ISA) subsidy. The ISA requires parishes without their own schools to support Catholic schools attended by their parishioners.  The subsidy becomes part of the school’s operating budget.  Where there was confusion was that some parents thought that the money was discounted from their tuition. It wasn’t; it was put into the operating budget for the schools. What the ISA allowed parish schools to do was offer an “affiliated tuition rate,” which is lower than: a) the cost of educating a child and b) the non-affiliated tuition rate for non-Catholics or Catholics not registered in a parish and not contributing to that parish in time, talent and treasure.

DCR: So what was once two sources of funding now becomes one as the ISA goes away and the CSAF increases? 
Thompson: Yes. The change will go into effect July 1, 2010.

DCR: Was this move prompted by the recent state of the economy?
Thompson: No, this is not a reaction to anything that happened recently to the economy.  It is part of a longer-range strategic plan that has been five yeas in discussion with various advisory boards, including the presbyterate, Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and the Archdiocesan Finance Council.  There is agreement from parties that the ISA wasn’t working and that this is a better way of making up those funds that were normally ISA funds because it’s more equitable and is distributed more fully to parishes that can afford it.

DCR: What are some of the other sources of income for the schools?
Thompson: We have many.  The Seeds of Hope Charitable Trust provides money for families who are using free and reduced lunch guidelines. The Catholic Foundation provides a grant each year that goes toward salary grants for teachers so that schools with lower financial means can be competitive on a salary scale. There are also various private groups and foundations that provide generous support to many schools. Each parish sets aside funds they self generate through fundraising and donations received at the local level.  And, of course, there is tuition, although no school in the archdiocese is operating solely on tuition.

DCR: Compared to other dioceses, how are the schools here doing?
Thompson: Better than most, not as good as some.  This year we had a decline in enrollment of 1.57 percent while nationally that number was 17 percent.  Some Catholic schools (across the nation) lost 40 percent of their enrollment, closed or were consolidated.  We feel fortunate that the impact of the declining economy, while serious, has been more minimal here than it has been in other areas.

DCR: So this shift in the way schools receive funds is part of a larger plan?
Thompson: Yes, we have a plan consisting of four pillars to help our schools.  The first pillar is to help provide schools with the vision and the tools to be as self-sustaining as possible within their resource realities.
The second pillar is to develop and nurture the philanthropic base because no matter what happens we’re going to need philanthropy.
The third pillar is what we’ve been talking about here—expanding the stakeholder base, changing the CSAF so it spreads support of the schools out among more parishes. 
The last pillar is selective pruning. For example: Can you continue to have 12 kids in a class and still be viable?  What we have to do is build that number to 25 students.  Some schools would have to prune internally—go from two classes to one or to cutting programs and expenses.  In some cases we’ve had to prune the number of schools that receive grants or the level of grants that they receive.  The hard reality is we have to discern which schools have the best opportunity for long-term survival, rather than thinning limited grant resources to the point where we don’t give enough support to anybody.

DCR: So what is the outlook?
Thompson: The outlook is good.  We think this move to expand the CSAF will actually lead to an increase in enrollment. Each parish will receive an assessment on their income of 3.79 percent whether they send one child to that school or 40 kids.  I think the economy is in slow recovery and the four pillars we have in place to support our strategic plan gives us a bright future—and our schools are working very hard on all of our initiatives, which I believe will help our system grow over time.

 For More Information

Go online to www.archden.org, click on “Offices” then on “Catholic Schools” and on “Frequently Asked Questions.”