Members of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council February 13 learned that diocesan financial contributions to the wider church’s budget exceeded what was expected in 2007 and will likely also increase in 2008.
Josephine Hicks of the Diocese of North Carolina, chair of Council’s Administration and Finance Committee (A&F), and Episcopal Church Treasurer Kurt Barnes reviewed the performance of the 2007 budget and presented A&F’s proposed 2008 budget. Council will vote on the budget February 14 during the concluding day of this four-day meeting in Quito.
Also during the afternoon plenary session at the Hilton Colon hotel, a task group charged with writing a letter to the Episcopal Church, to be released at the end of the meeting, presented a first draft and asked for feedback. Council members read the draft as it was projected on a large screen in the plenary meeting room. Task group chair Sherry Denton of the Diocese of Western Kansas asked the members to individually relay their feedback to the task group.
“diocesan financial contributions to the wider church’s budget exceeded what was expected in 2007 and will likely also increase in 2008.”
I won’t hold my breath for a refund.
Surprising to know the financial picture is so rosy. This will help those who are considering withholding their pledges from the national church feel more at ease doing so. Probably not a bad thing.
Well, you consider that in the Diocese of Upper S.C. alone that the 2008 pledge to the national church was increased by 51% (from $272,974 to $412,396) while budget requests from diocesian groups & missions were not fully funded & you can begin to get an idea of why the financial picture looks so good.
My thoughts are the same as johnd’s. Diocesan bishops are either joyfully crippling their own turf in order to give more to The Cause and The Dear Leader, or 815 is pressuring them to do so.
I’m sorry, where’s the part about the legal expenses?
bb
Spin factor in the article is pretty high. The actual positive variance for Diocesan Commitments for 2007 is only $172,748 or 0.6% of the budgeted amount. Most of the increased income was obtained from EMM Government Revenue and Investment Income. Source of this information is TEC’s website (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/finance.htm?menupage=869). Sorry, I do not know how to make the link “active.”
Interesting, for the 2004-2005-2006 Triennium, they budged 313 for Title IV & “Other Episcopal Expenses” (see [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2006Budget-Jan2006CouncilPresentationNKB.pdf]2006 budget presentation[/url page 7 of 12). In 2007, they budged 300,000 (for 1 year rather than 3 years) for “Title IV Investigation, Trial, and Legal” (see [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2007BudgetSummaryfor_web.pdf]here[/url]. Also in 2007, they budgeted $500,000 for “Property Protection for Mission” (I interpret that to be for lawsuits).
So in 2007, we are spending the same amount as in the last 3 years for Title IV expenses and we’re spending $500,00 to sue other Christians.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder