Dioceses hoping for a reduction in the assessment they pay to the Church Center will have to press their case at the General Convention in June, as the Executive Council has made clear it will not recommend such a change.
Budget issues will dominate the remarkably light agenda at the council’s four-day meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, which got under way on January 26 in the host city for the 81st General Convention. The meeting is at the Galt House, which bills itself as the largest hotel in Kentucky, and is itself a conference center — but the GC will be a block south in the Kentucky International Conference Center.
The meeting is being chaired by President of the House of Deputies Julia Ayala Harris in the absence of Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry, who continues to recover from January 18 surgery to address repeated subdural hematomas, or brain bleeds. Ayala Harris conveyed Curry’s gratitude for prayers and competent medical care, but provided no update on his condition.
The Rev. Patty Downing, council member from the Diocese of Delaware and the head of the budget committee, said there had been multiple requests to reduce the 15 percent assessment rate. “The Joint Budget Committee felt that the decision to do so was one that General Convention should make and not the committee itself,” she said, noting that there is a waiver process for dioceses unable to pay the full assessment.
On January 28, the council is scheduled to vote on a $143 million draft budget for the 2025-2027 triennium. The budget will then be subject to floor debate and a vote at General Convention, scheduled June 23 to 29.
Some dioceses reportedly plan to seek to reduce the assessment to as low as 10 percent. Treasurer Kurt Barnes told the council that a reduction to that level would create a $30 million shortfall for the triennium.
Joe McDaniel, council member from the Central Gulf Coast, took aim at a different revenue line — the 5 percent annual draw against the church’s investment portfolio.
“The Episcopal Church is sitting on a trust fund well in excess of $500 million,” McDaniel said, advocating that more resources should be devoted to mission work, particularly for ministries related to African-Americans and other ethic groups. He urged the council to vote against the budget as proposed, and advocated increasing the annual draw to 5.42 percent.
“Such an increase in the draw remains consistent with prudent financial management of the church’s assets,” McDaniel said, although Downing earlier said “most nonprofits and other organizations find that a 4 percent draw is more sustainable.”
At an evening meeting of the finance committee, Barnes took issue with McDaniels’s reference to the size of the church’s trust funds. He said that while it is true that the total trust is about $550 million, $220 million of that belongs to dioceses and parishes that coinvest with the church. Some other funds are restricted, leaving about $170 million in unrestricted funds to draw against.
Several committee members spoke in opposition to increasing the draw, and the committee unanimously voted against the proposal.
Downing said the draft budget calls for a 3 percent cost of living increase for Church Center staff, and anticipates that reorganization will lead to a 5 percent staff reduction. She said the estimate is not based on concrete plans, but rather on what the budget committee thought was “achievable.”
The budget includes $2 million to be used for a combination of unfunded resolutions passed by General Convention, and funding for “any initiatives that the new presiding bishop may wish to undertake.” Curry’s successor will be elected at General Convention, and will assume office on November 1.
