Dear Friends,

For a couple of years, we have been scheduled to receive roughly $120,000.00 from a program called ERC (Employee Retention Credit) that was established as part of the CARES Act.

It is a payroll tax credit that recognizes employers who maintained employees through Covid. It helped reimburse some part of the costs of ensuring that our communities were not even more damaged by the challenges of the pandemic by additionally crippling furloughs, lay-offs, and the like.

We were supposed to begin receiving that payment this year after administrative delays last year.

Given the uncertainty of the current federal funding of programs like ERC, we no longer have the degree of confidence in receiving it that we once did. We hope that these funds will still come through but we want to get ahead of this early in the year.

This may result in some additional ask or in program cuts to offset the loss in income. Whatever additional help you are able to offer would be gratefully received. Regardless of the steps we need to take in the coming months to address this, we want to put this new potential challenge in front of you to be as transparent as possible.

We are monitoring it, aware of its potential impact, and being cautious in spending until we have a clearer picture. Given that it is still early in the year we have time to look at a range of options. I appreciate our treasurer Herb Burton’s work in monitoring this and would encourage you to contact him if you have any questions. He can be reached at treasurer@stphilipstucson.org.

Thanks as always for all the ways so many of you are so generous here through all the changes and chances of recent years!

—Fr Robert