Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I write to you today with a heart full of gratitude. As Bishop of Lincoln, my responsibilities include prudent oversight regarding the financial stewardship of the resources provided to us by your generous donations and other gifts. Your sacrificial offerings are what enable us to grow our apostolic ministries and offer needed services to our parishes and schools.
Thank you for your generosity! I am pleased to report that the Diocese of Lincoln is in good financial standing. You have stepped up to support our major initiatives, including our annual Charity and Stewardship Appeal, the Bishop’s Appeal for Vocations, and our Good Shepherd Scholarship Program. These efforts, and similar ones, combined with your ongoing support of your own parishes, enable us to carry out our mission to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our Catholic faith with the world!
We strive to be prudent stewards of the resources you have entrusted to us, addressing the most critical needs of our diocese. Through your contributions, you offer help to the hungry and the homeless through the work of Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska. You are providing for the future faith needs of our diocese by investing in the training of our seminarians. You are ensuring parents are in charge of their children’s education and everyone has access to a Catholic education through your support of our diocesan Catholic schools. Those are just a few of the ways you are helping to share God’s love. Thank you for doing that!
There will always be financial mountains we must climb, but together, I am confident we will overcome whatever obstacles the future may hold for our diocese. We have a strong and vibrant faith community and we will never stop working to support the most vulnerable, provide faith-filled opportunities to draw closer to God, and spread the Gospel near and far.
To each one of you, I offer my gratitude and heartfelt thanks. Your unwavering support and dedication to our diocese makes our faith journey together a true gift from God. As we move forward, let us keep one another in our prayers, trusting in God’s providence and the abundance of His grace.
With my prayers for you and your families, I remain
Sincerely yours in Christ,
The Most Reverend James D. Conley
Bishop of Lincoln
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Dear Friends of the Diocese of Lincoln,
Through your continued generosity to our parishes, schools and ministries, the Diocese of Lincoln remains in solid financial health. We are grateful to you, our lay faithful, as well as our priests, and religious, who have collectively sustained and built-up our parishes, schools, and institutions within the Diocese this past year.
The financial information presented in this report is limited to The Catholic Bishop of Lincoln (CBL/Chancery) and does not include individual parishes, missions, schools, and other related entities, which are organized as separate nonprofit organizations and operated separately from CBL and report directly to their parishioners.
This report presents the financial results for fiscal year 2023 as well as an update on multi-year initiatives. CBL consists of various offices created to support parishes, schools, and ministries, organize events, monitor activities, and coordinate efforts. The activities of the Chancery are primarily funded by parish assessments, contributions, and program service fees.
Detailed in the report:
>CBL operations were managed prudently and closely followed established budgets.
>The Good Shepherd Scholarship program continues to succeed and has completed its fourth year. This initiative seeks to ensure that Catholic education in the Diocese of Lincoln is available to any student by providing tuition assistance to families in need. In 2023, the Diocese awarded $2,900,000 of scholarships.
>Diocese-wide coordination of educational technologies achieve its goals. Funding for the education and educational technology departments were fully transitioned to a fee structure based on school enrollment. The fee has been gradually increasing since being implemented in 2020-2021 and now fully funds these costs putting these departments on solid financial footing.
>CBL coordinates shared insurance plans for Diocesan parishes, schools and institutions covering health insurance and property casualty allowing efficiencies through economies of scale. While the diocese is comprised of numerous entities, combining our resources to participate in these plans lowers costs for individual parishes and other participants and provides greater efficiencies. The insurance for property and casualty covered the costs of all claims experienced during the year. Expenses related to claims for employee health insurance increased nearly $1 million and was funded primarily by an increase in premium charged to employees. Reserves set aside for health insurance were used to fund a $250,000 shortfall.
>Investment gains were in line with the overall market conditions, increasing net assets by $3.3 million. $2.2 million of the gains in investments are unrealized.
>Independent actuarial studies of the priests’ pension plan were favorable, moving the plan from 95% funded to 99% funded. Over the last 8 years approximately $9 million dollars raised in the Joy of the Gospel campaign were contributed to the priest retirement plan.
We are grateful for the leadership, advice and counsel of our Diocesan Finance Council. Together, we will work to continue to prudently and efficiently support parishes, schools and other diocesan institutions as they minister to the people of God in the Diocese of Lincoln.
Sincerely,
Tracy Lockwood
Chief Financial Officer
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REVIEW OF FISCAL 2023 OPERATIONS
Diocesan operations consist of: chancery operations, the St. John Vianney Association for the care and retirement of priests, and the Diocesan wide health and property/casualty insurance programs. (Note that the operations of the Diocesan Investment and Loan Trust activity is not included in these statements as those funds are held in a trust for the benefit of the parishes and participants.)
Chancery Operations Results
Every year the Chancery goes through a detailed budgeting effort with the goal of budgeting at a break-even or better operation. For fiscal year 2023 our net assets from operations increased $594,000 as a result of contributions received from foundations primarily directed at Catholic education.
The budget for 2023-2024 includes increased contributions for the Good Shepherd Scholarship program for families in need of tuition assistance. In previous years a larger part of these expenses were funded by contributions to the Joy of the Gospel campaign designated for education and now are funded by a balance of current contributions and Joy of the Gospel distributions. The budget also includes investment income that the Diocese is now realizing on their cash and short term investments.
The tables below exclude the programs for property and health insurance and the priest retirement fund activity.
• Diocesan assessment income increase reflects an increase in the education and technology fee in 2023 and also as a result of increased income from parishes.
• Contribution income increased due to contributions received for the Good Shepherd Scholarship and Work Ethic Education Grant.
• Education expenses include $2.4 million in Good Shepherd Scholarships distributed directly to schools plus $500,000 in education and technology scholarships in 2023.
• Operating expenses for General and administrative costs in 2022 were offset by the recovery of several old loans. Net of the effects of that one-time activity, general and administrative costs were comparable.
• Stewardship and development expenses spiked in 2022 because of write-offs for uncollectible pledges related to Joy of the Gospel.
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Glossary of Terms
Statement of Financial Position
Amounts due to parishes and other diocesan entities: These are primarily rebates from Joy of the Gospel and Charity and Stewardship Appeal that are payable to parishes.
Loans receivable, net: Loans issued by the Chancery to parishes or schools. These loans are from the Chancery directly and not from the Lincoln Diocesan Investment and Loan Trust.
Priest pension: The unfunded liability for the priest retirement plan. It is the difference between the actuarial accrued pension liability and valuation of pension assets.
Statement of Activities
Operating revenue and support
Operational Assessments: Annual contribution from parish collections to the centralized ministries and services of the diocese, St. John Vianney Association for priest retirement and the Southern Nebraska Register.
Contributions: Includes unrestricted and restricted donations to CBL from generous benefactors.
Program revenue: Funds received in fees for programs, retreats, etc.
Operating expenses
Family life and discipleship: Includes ministries of religious education and formation of children and young adults in addition to providing programs to strengthen and support family life. Programs include but are not limited to Hispanic ministry, hospital and nursing home ministries, prison chaplaincy and pro-life programs. Diocesan communications which oversees the publication of the Southern Nebraska Register, media relations, and Diocesan website content and video and audio productions is also included.
Education: Expenses of the Diocesan Catholic Education office including the Education Technology department which collectively supports the Catholic elementary and high schools of the diocese by providing equipment, equipment, guidelines, and standards for school software, hardware, connectivity, security, safety, technical support and training for staff and students.
St. John Vianney: Retirement, medical and other assistance for the care of our priests.
Vocations: Funds the education of seminarians, and provides opportunities for discernment to priesthood and religious life.
Insurance: The Diocese administers the health care insurance plan and property and liability insurance program for all Diocesan employees, parishes, schools and related ecclesiastical entities. The expense line represents premium, claim and other expenses related to these shared service plans.
General and administrative: The offices that coordinate the financial, accounting, property maintenance, and information technology of the Diocese and provides financial services to parishes by assisting with budgeting, financial management, accounting and payroll services.
Stewardship and development: Expenses related to fundraising and to managing diocesan appeals and campaign including the Joy of the Gospel, Charity and Stewardship Appeal and Bishop’s Appeal for Vocations. Additionally, this office coordinates the use of a standard church management platform for parishes.
Other changes in net assets
Priest pension: The combination of benefits paid to retired priests and the change in the present value of funds required to provide retirement benefits in the future.
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Overview of multi-year Diocese programs
The annual Charity and Stewardship Appeal provides for the material, spiritual, and educational needs of God’s people across Southern Nebraska. CSA 2022 raised $2.8 million that was utilized in three important ways in fiscal year 2023. 1) $2.1 million was returned as rebates to the parishes that raised the funds, to support their schools and ministries. 2) $490,000 supported Diocesan offices such as the offices of Family Life & Discipleship, Hispanic Ministry, Tribunal and Archives. 3) $215,000 was contributed to Diocesan-wide apostolates such as Our Lady of Good Counsel Retreat House, St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center, Catholic Social Services and Camp Kateri.
The Bishop’s Appeal for Vocations raises funds to pay for the tuition, room and board and other educational costs for the Diocese of Lincoln’s future priests. 100% of the proceeds from the Bishop’s Appeal for Vocations helps fund the seminarian education budget that costs $1.2 million to $1.5 million, depending on the number of seminarians annually. Over the last five years the appeal has raised an average of $1.1M. This year’s appeal has commitments of $975,000 as of Oct. 31 and will hopefully, once again raise over $1 million by the end of the year.
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Spotlight on the Good Shepherd Scholarship
The Good Shepherd Scholarship Program was established by Bishop James Conley in 2019 to ensure that families of all income levels could receive a Catholic education in the Lincoln Diocese. Since inception the Diocese of Lincoln has distributed tuition assistance of $7.7 million.
In 2023, over $2.9 million in scholarships were distributed. In 2023 $2.2 million of funding was provided by new donations and the remaining awards of $700,000 were provided through distributions raised for Catholic education during the Joy of the Gospel campaign. The Diocese of Lincoln is grateful to the 584 donors across the diocese and beyond who have contributed to the Good Shepherd Scholarship Fund.
