Posted on 01/31/2003 6:04:48 AM PST by ninenot
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee paid nearly $6.3 million over the years in handling cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests, but more than $2.8 million of that was paid by insurance companies, according to a financial report that was mailed this week to every Catholic household in the 10-county archdiocese.
The report, part of a promise by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan to provide more financial accountability to a Catholic population rocked by nationwide sex scandals, provided combined financial statements on the archdiocese's wide-ranging activities and cash flows for the fiscal year that ended last June 30.
Such audited annual reports have been made available for years, but this effort differed in three main respects.
For the first time, it gave totals and cost breakdowns for settlements, attorneys' fees, therapy and other assistance in cases of clergy sexual abuse. Former Archbishop Rembert Weakland released figures in 1995, but they were outside of the annual report, and no updates had been given.
With the exception of a one-year total of donations and expenditures for the more than $10 million renovation of Milwaukee's cathedral and nearby properties, the report had no new categories of information, said Wayne Schneider, director of finance/administration for the archdiocese.
The report was mailed to all 210,000 Catholic households. Distribution practices in the past have varied, from mailing only to donors or including it in the Catholic Herald newspaper, to the more recent practice of giving it to those who ask, said archdiocesan spokesman Jerry Topczewski.
Archdiocesan officials could make no comparisons with the previous year's report because of a switch in accounting firms.
Arthur Andersen, which closed its offices last year because of the national Enron Corp. scandal, had been doing the archdiocese's audits. Neither the archdiocese nor its newly hired accounting firm - Virchow, Krause & Co. - was able to get prior-year records or work papers from Arthur Andersen for the new firm to verify, Schneider said.
Weakland reported in spring 1995 that sexual abuse cases had cost nearly $5.5 million and would cost another $800,000 in 1996.
The new report shows that settlements with victims dropped off after 1995, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that religious organizations could not be sued for their priests' actions. Some $3.9 million in settlements were paid for all years through mid-May of 1995; from then until the end of last June, about $154,800 was paid.
Similarly, therapy and assistance for victims cost $483,700 through mid-May of 1995 and $153,969 for the years since then. Attorney fees were $1.3 million and $218,542.
Although the report shows a deficit of $17 million in the archdiocese's net assets for the year, that should not be construed as a deficit in the operating budget, which was balanced, Schneider said.
The $17 million includes such things as nearly $6.4 million in managed funds that the archdiocese simply transferred to the new Catholic Community Foundation; a paper loss of about $3.5 million caused by a decline in the value of investments; and about $4.2 million in cathedral project expenses.
A former trustee of St Mary's/Elm Grove parish is also the former Managing Partner of Arthur Anderson/Milwaukee.
This smells.
Neither the archdiocese nor its newly hired accounting firm - Virchow, Krause & Co. - was able to get prior-year records or work papers from Arthur Andersen for the new firm to verify, Schneider said.
It's more than likely that AA -- or what's left of it -- has been in a total state of disarray for some months now. My guess would be there's too few people left to do everything, and they're concentrating on law suit and/or gov't inquiry stuff.
One would presume, however, that the Archdiocese still has the original records from which AA worked, even if AA's work papers have been lost and/or stolen and/or whatever. (Didn't the illegal, or at least improper, destruction of work papers figure in one of the accounting scandals? Can anyone refresh my memory here?)
Of course, if an interested party wished to deep-six anything, a situation like AA's would make it awfully easy!
That's peanuts next to the $30.2 million that Dallas is paying out from the Rudy Kos case alone.
No much-needed Catholic high school in Plano because of this foolishness.
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