Episcopal Press and News
Convention Adopts $131.5 Million Budget with 'Christ at Center of Program'
Episcopal News Service. September 7, 1994 [94139]
David Skidmore, Alice Clayton
Brushing aside expressions of pessimism, and determined to support a continuation of missionary work on the national level, the 71st General Convention approved a three-year, $131.5 million budget that will challenge dioceses to go the extra mile in support of national programs.
Both the deputies and bishops approved the a budget that responds to repeated calls for visible and significant funding for national and world mission responding to Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning's challenge to congregations and dioceses to reach for a larger vision of the church. The budget also provides a new funding formula that is expected to provide relief for dioceses that find it difficult to support national church operations.
"We hope you can see why Program, Budget and Finance (PB&F) feels it has accepted the challenge to change," said Vincent Currie of Central Gulf Coast, chair of the committee, in presenting the budget. "When you accept this challenge, you accept with it the mandate to return to your dioceses and present it to your people there."
Bishop George Hunt of Rhode Island, chair of the PB&F program committee, said that "we've tried to put Christ at the center of this program and budget."
One key breakthrough in the budget process was the development of a more equitable funding formula. The revised formula, which proposes a single asking rather than the old two-part apportionment and assessment, offers three options:
- A diocese can calculate the amount it sends to the national church based on the income received from its congregations rather than (as in the past) on the total income received by its congregations from their members. A diocese choosing this option then uses a new formula with five graduated percentage ranges: 16 percent on their first $500,000,19 percent for the next $500,000,22 percent for the next $1 million, 25 percent for the next $2 million, and 20 percent for income over $4 million.
- As an alternative, a diocese may elect to pay the same amount it paid to the national church in 1994. If it chooses this option, the amount would increase by 3 percent in 1996 and 1997 to account for inflation. (During the past three years, dioceses paid an apportionment of.0375 percent and a General Convention assessment of.027 percent.)
- A diocese also has the choice of paying somewhere within a "covenant range" based on the new graduated formula. With this option, dioceses can pay either the lesser, greater, or somewhere between two amounts; the 1994 payment; or what they would pay under the graduated formula. Russell Palmore of Virginia, a member of PB&F, explained that the "current funding system has been in place for 50 years [and is] based on income at the parish level of each diocese." But, he added, in most cases the increase of support to congregations has not been matched by increased giving to dioceses. "It has been a flawed system," Palmore admitted. "I think the church believes it's a flawed system, and this is a response to what we've heard over the last nine years."
"In one sense, every diocese is being asked to pay more because the new formula provides a new top number and bottom number," Hunt said of the revised funding formula. "That's to give the dioceses some elasticity. One of the reasons it took so long to come up with this formula was to try to present a more equal asking of each diocese. Some of the dioceses were being asked to give almost 40 percent of their income, while others only had to give 15 percent. The range with the new formula is closer to 20 percent for each diocese," he said.
Hunt also commented during a press conference on the issue of withholding funds as "punishment" for disagreement with church policies or convention actions. Several dioceses announced after the 1991 convention that they would not support the national church, citing continuing controversy over human sexuality.
Most dioceses are working to support both the national church and local ministries, added Hunt. "But when push comes to shove, if you have a hungry person staring you in the face, you vote to feed the person you can see," Hunt said.
Treasurer Ellen Cooke added, "There are three main factors [in the drop in available funds]. One is local economic conditions. The second is the desire to do more ministry on the local and regional level. And the third is, some people were taking positions for and against actions taken or not taken in Phoenix. We hope that won't be true coming out of this convention," Cooke added, "but there is always that possibility."
Although General Convention approved the new operating budget, questions about sufficient support from the dioceses persist, especially with issues of sexuality simmering under the surface.
The bishops, after unanimously approving the budget, provided an answer to that question by adopting a mind-of-the-house resolution from Bishop Roger White of Milwaukee. The measure creates a covenant among the bishops "to support the total mission and program of our church" and committing them to encourage their dioceses to support the budget at the top level of the funding plan.
With the presiding bishop now the "point person" in this new spirit of faithful witness, said White, "the church is waiting for us to claim this lead."
White's words were echoed by Bishop Steve Charleston of Alaska, who said the bishops should prove they will do "everything in our power" to encourage their members to give at the maximum level. Similar resolutions also were offered in the House of Deputies, with dozens of clergy and laity signing supportive statements.
Though the spirit of White's resolution found general support, several bishops said they could not agree because their dioceses oppose some of the trends in the national church.
Bishop Terence Kelshaw of Rio Grande said his "hands were tied" because of parish autonomy and "the collegiality he owes to the diocese." His diocese has always paid its full apportionment, he noted, "but the fact of the matter is that in my diocese the spirit of local option pervades."
Kelshaw said he will do what he can to encourage participation, but "the parishes will decide if and whether they will contribute to the budget of this church."
Sharing Kelshaw's view, Bishop John Howe of Central Florida said that he sympathized with the resolution but that his diocesan board and convention has insisted on exercising local option in supporting the national church. He also pointed out that division among the bishops over sexuality "is going to have a deleterious effect on giving."
But Charleston challenged their remarks, declaring it unacceptable that bishops should consider their hands tied on the question of supporting the budget. "If I felt that the entire diocesan convention of Alaska opposed the issue of the Gospel of Christ, I would gladly stand alone on that floor. My hands would not be tied when it came to speak the word of truth."
Charleston's statement that "we cannot degenerate as a church in using money as a pressure tactic and a political football and tool to use against one another" earned wide applause.
Charleston went on to remind the bishops of the consequences of exercising local option. If dioceses withhold their money, Charleston asserted, the result -- at least in Alaska -- is that they are not punishing political opponents. "You are punishing innocent native people in those villages whose theology may be very much like yours, but who are suffering because the Gospel imperative has been replaced by the political imperative." he said. "Of that we should be ashamed."
Bishops and deputies also approved a new "Challenge Giving Program Fund" to support $1.12 million in programs not in the budget adopted by the convention.
The challenge giving program assures that any money received above the amount budgeted from the dioceses in 1995 -- projected at $27.6 million -- would be applied to the following ministries in 1996, up to the following amounts:
- Legacy Scholarship Fund Development $30,000
- St. Augustine's, St. Paul's, Voorhees Colleges $140,000
- Cuttington College, Liberia $450,000
- Grant opportunities for Jubilee Ministries and economic, environmental and racial justice $500,000
Among the items in the approved budget are:
- full funding at the 1994 levels for appointed missionaries, Volunteers for Mission and overseas dioceses for the next three years;
- an increase in funding for three historically black Episcopal colleges -- St. Augustine's, St. Paul's, and Voorhees colleges -- by $100,000 for each of the three years to $960,000 a year;
- a grant for $75,000 a year for three years to the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition (NEAC), as well as an additional $40,166 each year as a block grant to fund new programs for AIDS education through the provinces or in other ministries;
- full funding for programs focused on Ministry with Children, Youth and Young Adults for the "development of models of ministries" as well as adding new funding for suicide prevention education for families, youth presence at General Convention, and evangelism, for a total of $1.3 million during the next three years;
- support for a Province 8 intercultural ministry by providing a devolving fund of $30,000 for each of two years, and $20,000 for the third year;
- an allotment of $50,000 for continuing the dialogue on human sexuality using the bishops' pastoral study document;
- an $800,000 fund to develop a church-wide computer bulletin board service during the triennium.