July 11, 2009
by Mary Frances Schjonberg

The Program, Budget and Finance (PBF) committee invited Episcopalians at a hearing July 10 to come up with "imaginative and realistic" ideas about how to pay for the ministry of the church in the next three years, given the expectation that its income will be $15 million less than originally anticipated.

Deputy Holly McAlpen, chair of the funding sub-committee, told the hearing that diocesan giving is now expected to be down as much as 5 percent a year or $13.5 million, with an additional $1.3 million decline in income from investments.

"We welcome your imaginative and realistic ideas tonight," she said.

Rather than simply listening to testimony, the committee met with witnesses in small groups to discuss several income scenarios, along with their potential impact on spending. Toward the end of the meeting, each small group reported to the entire hearing.

PBF chair Pan Adams-McCaslin (Arkansas) said during an interview that the committee wanted to use a conversational style in the hearing to echo the convention's theme of Ubuntu: "I in you and you in me."

New Jersey Bishop George Councell, subcommittee co-chair, said that the committee wanted the church to know that "we're in this storm together, but we're also wonderfully, gracefully, amazingly accompanied by the Lord Jesus Christ."

Among the ideas and opinions that the committee heard were calls for greater accountability by the Episcopal Church, a reduction of church-wide meetings, and better communication and education about how the wider church does what it does and why it costs what it does.

"People support what they believe in," Deputy S. Brooks Keith told the committee.

Several witnesses suggested that reducing the amount of money that the church asks from dioceses might result in more dioceses actually paying the full amount.

There was even a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the church set up "Episco-Bay," like the online auction site E-Bay, to help downsizing baby-boomers sell their possessions and give a portion of the money to the church.

"I think our current structure is unsustainable," said Keith. "I do not believe that we're seeing something new and different because of the current economic crisis … I believe we are seeing things revealed that have been implicit in our structure and they are not sustainable. It's very painful and it's sacrificial."

Deputy Ora Houston (Texas) told the committee "we need an optimistic and hopeful budget" and the church needs a way to make dioceses accountable for not meeting the funding request from the General Convention.

"Things are going to improve," said David Bailey (North Dakota). "But we've got to hunker down now."

The bulk of the church's triennial income comes from its 110 dioceses. The Executive Council's draft 2010-2012 budget forecast in January that nearly $96.6 million of the budget's $161.8 million in income would come from the dioceses.

Each diocese is asked to give the church 21 percent of its income, after subtracting $100,000. Twenty-eight dioceses have committed to pay that amount, according to the most current information available. Six dioceses committed to slightly more than that. Twenty-six dioceses have not filed the required reports that allow for a calculation of the diocese's operating income. Each year's annual giving is based on a diocese's income two years earlier.

McAlpen told the hearing that if each diocese gave the full 21 percent, the church would have $6.5 million more in annual income.

Each one-percent reduction of the 21 percent asking would mean $925,000 less in income and every $25,000 increase in the $100,000 exclusion would reduce annual income by $583,000.

The committee is scheduled to present its proposed budget on July 15 to a joint session of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies in the deputies' hall. Both houses must approve the budget. A vote is expected July 16, the day before the end of convention.

Episcopal News Service