Each year the parish must fill out a workers compensation payroll questionnaire. This form reports the parish’s actual payroll for the year.

The form itself is fairly simple. It asks for the total number of employees at the location, then asks for the total payroll, divided into categories. All employees should be included on this report, no matter how little they worked during the year. All priests and other religious (brothers and sisters) should also be included on this report.

Things get tricky when you have an employee whose payroll is split among multiple locations. For example, say there is a priest who is responsible for three parishes (Parishes 1, 2, and 3), and each parish pays a third of his salary. Only the parish that writes the paycheck to the priest (in this example, Parish 1) should include the priest on their payroll questionnaire, and Parish 1 should include the priest’s entire wages, not just their share. The parish should then note on the questionnaire that a portion of that salary is paid by parishes 2 and 3; this can be done by noting either the percentage (Parish 2 paid 33% of this salary) or the actual dollar amount (Parish 2 paid $XXXX of this salary). Catholic Mutual will figure out the premium charge for that priest, then divide the charge among the three parishes according to the allocation on the payroll questionnaire.