Archdiocese of Milwaukee Incurs $384,000 in Fees for Publishing Notices in New York Times, Others

By Rich Kirchen
Milwaukee Business Journal
October 12, 2015

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2015/10/archdiocese-of-milwaukeeincurs-384-000-in-fees-for.html

The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case has received national notoriety as the largest of its kind, so why did the archdiocese spend $250,000 to publish legal notices in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today?

That expenditure was on top of $134,356 the archdiocese devoted in 2011 to publish a legal notice in the same newspapers giving the bar date for filing proofs of claims in the case.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee's offices are at the Cousins Center in St. Francis.

Sunday’s notice, which also appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the largest newspapers in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, was published to comply with an order signed by the case’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Susan Kelley in Milwaukee.

The archdiocese’s insurers required the archdiocese to publish the notices as part of the bankruptcy-case settlement, said Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for the Office of the Archbishop Jerome Listecki.

The goal of insurers is to make every effort to spread the word on the settlement to anyone who might have a claim or concern.

“In order to receive the nearly $11 million from the insurance carriers, which was used to fund the overall settlement in the bankruptcy proceeding, there was a cost of approximately $250,000, which was totally outside our control,” Topczewski said. “It was required by the insurance settlement and the rules of the bankruptcy code.”

The same reasons applied to publishing the “bar date” legal notice in 2011, Topczewski said.

Without publishing the legal notices in such a broad manner, there would have been no insurance settlement and $11 million less in funds available to the archdiocese bankuptcy estate, Topczewski said.

The legal notice informs readers that the archdiocese has filed its Chapter 11 reorganization plan as well as key upcoming dates in the case. The notice states that the deadline for voting on the plan and objecting to the confirmation is Nov. 3 and that the confirmation hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9 at the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee.