Villanova’s Center for the Study of Church Management produced a great look at Catholic Church budgets about a decade ago:

A recently released 2010 survey conducted by the Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership (CCSP), a multi-faith group of religious researchers and faith leaders representing over 25 faith groups, had some interesting findings in that regard. The survey included data from a national sample of 390 Catholic parishes. The average annual budget of the parishes in the sample was $566,564. They spent about 39 percent of their budget on salaries and benefits, 26 percent on buildings and operations, 13 percent on program support (such as religious education or youth groups), 12 percent on mission and charity (including diocesan assessments) and 10 percent on other expenditures. The CCSP found that among the Catholic parishes in their sample:

39.7 percent thought that their parish’s financial health was in good or excellent condition in 2010, while 42.9 percent believed that to have been the case for their parish in 2005. 56.8 percent indicated that their income had declined during the recession; 19.6 percent found no significant change; 13.2 percent of the parishes in the sample saw income decrease at first and then rebound; and 10.5 percent realized an increase in parish income during the recession.

The largest piece of the financial pie at parishes is the cost of staff; that 39 percent for salaries and benefits. This is where the drop-off in religious vocations and brothers and nuns has born out as a catastrophic wound to church infrastructure. All these people we now have to pay to administer the life of a community.

From the looks of these numbers, most areas seem about as slim as they can get: 12 percent on mission/charity work, 13 percent on program support, etc. That 39 percent still looks pretty fat.

Any tool that can allow a parish to further reduce staff will probably be welcome, pretty much as soon as possible. Ideally that would mean vocations, but for the foreseeable future that probably means software.