10815 N. 35th Ave.Phoenix, Arizona 85029Father Gary Regula, Pastor

St. Jerome Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) Meeting

February 5, 2018

Attendance:

Present: Fr. Gary, Howard Birnbaum,Kevin Barnes, Javier Bravo, Janet Cunningham, Paul Budde, Liz Diaz,Jeovanna Gonzales, Hank Griego- Finance Committee Rep

Absent: All Members Present

Father Gary opened the meeting with prayer at 6:30pm.

No changes to prior meeting notes.

Guests /
  • No Guests

Principal’s Report /
  • Javier shared the full report for us to read about the accreditation. He also provided a summary of the report for the council to review.
  • We are very aware where we (as a school) need to grow in the upcoming years and we have outlined those things with a plan in place.
  • We are also in need and currently putting together and implementing a structure with written processes and procedures.
  • 4 more families were fully funded and 3 more STOs opened up today.
  • We have a night scheduled with Brian who is with Arizona Education who will come explain how that all works.
  • The key to getting these scholarships is getting taxes done early
  • We were given a $2000 donation to promote the school and it was used for marketing and promotional material. We will next be visiting or Lady of Czestochowa and the Vietnamese Martyrs Church to talk about our school.
  • We are currently at 197 students and we budgeted for 217 but as discussed in the past a lot of those who left were not paying tuition or were very far behind. We had about 30 families $4000 or more behind. The hope is through the marketing and scholarship education we will be able to make up the deficit
  • We have managed to keep spending down but we are still in the red.
  • We have a TV Spot coming up. ABC 15 came out and recorded a commercial using some of our kids and it will play during the Oscars on March 4th.
  • We are in need of a new reading program. Journeys is the best program as it embeds grammar in the reading which has proven to be the best. We would like to have that program by the 18-19 year if not sooner.
  • We are also looking at new textbooks. For 2019-2020 we need to update the math and in 2020-2021 we will need to update religion.
  • We are looking to go with the chrome books going forward and next year we will include a technology fee in registration.
  • The accreditation report is now available on the school side for anyone who would like to review it.

Pastor’s Report /
  • Our IT people told us we do not have enough licenses for all of our Microsoft products. We should have about 80 and we currently have 2. This is going to cost us about $650 on the Parish side and $4000 on the school side.
  • We have been meeting with solar companies. We can’t take the solar tax credit but investors can buy it for a non-profit and take the tax credit. They are going to give us a schema of everything and let us know what we can do. Both the companies we are talking to have worked with the Dioceses before and we will update with more progress as we proceed.
  • Who we had booked for our Parish Mission had something unexpected come up and had to reschedule. We have decided to do a teaching Mission about the Triduum. The Parish Council agrees that it sounds like a good solution and an interesting topic.
  • Kitchen protocols are currently being worked on and we should have those in place soon.
  • St. Vincent De. Paul is currently running low on space. We discussed letting them use the freezer in the school as the school no longer uses the freezer. Letting them use it will go hand in hand in with new kitchen protocols.
  • The new desk has been installed and we are discussing how to man it. We are considering the idea of opening up on Sundays and having staff available to help people when they are there for mass. Specifically with registration and automatic Withdrawal forms etc.
  • Going forward the Blessed Sacrament will be put back in the tabernacle after communion. We will also begin calling up those up who are delivering Eucharist to the homebound and send them out with a blessing.
  • A few people have been volunteers with us. One was a money counter and one delivered Eucharist. They are no longer parishioners and do not attend church here or participate in ministries or activities. Because of this they cannot really represent St. Jerome or lead a ministry. If you want to Minister here you need to call St. Jerome your home.
  • Because of this Mike Boos has taken over Fellowship Square & Fr. Raysion will do the masses.
  • Compassion Into Action would like to sell their Mexican Dinner Tickets at St. Jerome after the 5,8 and 10 am masses. Parish Council was not against this happening but they did feel strongly that if they sell at one they sell at all the masses. There was some concern about the promotion of the event affecting the sale and attendance of our St. Patrick’s Day Dance which is the same weekend. No one had a strong opinion one way or the other. Father Gary will ask at a few other meetings and pray about it more before making a decision.

Finance Report /
  • The Finance Committee unanimously approved the chrome books
  • They also approved getting the licenses for the computers
  • We have moved forward with retro-fitting the lighting
  • We are at about 38% of our goal for the Go Forth Campaign. We should expect to see our portion of that after Feb 15.
  • First round of budgets are due in February
  • We had a good December

Events Report /
  • We are getting ready for the Flea Market in a few days and still looking for more vendors
  • We will next begin planning our St. Patrick’s Day Dinner & Easter Egg Hunt

Building
and
Grounds Report /
  • We will have a Parish Work Day on Feb 24 we will be working on:
  • Lighting around the PMC
  • Oven Parts
  • Possibly Painting the curbs

Additional Items / No additional items were brought up

Meeting ended in prayer by Javier Bravo at 742pm

Upcoming Meetings

The next scheduled meeting is Monday March 4, 2018,at 6:30 p.m. in the Conference Room.