Episcopal Press and News
Council Sends Projected '86 Budget To Convention
Episcopal News Service. April 25, 1985 [85087]
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (DPS, April 25) -- The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church concluded a lengthy process with a quick vote sending a $27.4 million budget to the General Convention for consideration next September.
Council has the responsibility of proposing a detailed budget to Convention for the first year of a triennium and setting out a general plan for the remaining two years. Convention scrutinizes -- and often modifies -- the proposal which then becomes the budget making framework for the following three years.
This time, the budget had undergone a particularly rigorous review and revision by senior Episcopal Church Center staff and a larger-than-normal complement of councilors. This came about because original askings had outstripped income projections dramatically while, on the other hand, diocesan response to the apportionment formula is already over 98 percent. In his "message from the chair" Presiding Bishop John M. Allin praised this response and pleaded for leeway for the Church to continue its "second-mile" response to development and social programs rather than locking these into the Program Development Budget.
When the budget circumstances first were realized at the February meeting, Council set in motion a process that eventually led to a freeze in the number of Church Center staff at 1985 levels. In early March, after staff consultations, two members from each of the Council standing committees met together in New York to work up the final budget. With voluntary reductions by the staff, the group was able to agree that $100,000 could be reserved for new initiatives by the next Presiding Bishop and Council and the balanced budget was complete.
Convention Deputy Janet Maguire, who chairs the budget subcommittee of the Program Budget and Finance panel, and Council member Thomas Tisdale, chairman of Program Budget and Finance, also sat in on the process and will be responsible for shepherding the result through Convention.