From the Living Church:
Two Dioceses Report Financial Shortfall
07/05/2007
The dioceses of Pittsburgh and Western Kansas have reported financial shortfalls of more than 15 percent recently.
At its June 5 meeting, the Pittsburgh diocesan council approved major budget adjustments due to lower than anticipated assessment income and litigation costs, both caused by renewed activity in the lawsuit initiated by Calvary Church, Pittsburgh. The diocese is now estimating legal expenses of $500,000 for 2007.
After the 75th General Convention when Pittsburgh and six other dioceses requested alternate primatial oversight, Calvary Church returned to court seeking through discovery to obtain copies of all communication between the diocesan leadership, the Anglican Communion Network and the Global South primates.
The original budget for 2007 was $1.7 million. After additions for legal fees and a few reductions, the revised budget for the 2007 is now $2.2 million. The new figure takes into account the escrowing of Calvary’s assessment. To cover the estimated legal fees and the Calvary shortfall, the diocesan governing bodies have decided to draw $220,500 from operating reserve; use $335,000 approved by the board of trustees from funds they control; and use $60,000 given by supporters for the purpose of covering lawsuit costs.
A very early draft 2008 budget would reduce diocesan expenses by the amount of Calvary’s assessment. The diocese plans to live within its means, according to Peter Frank, director of communications for the diocese.
The shortfall in the Diocese of Western Kansas began when its application for a $65,000 DFMS partnership grant was not renewed. Several years ago the criteria for approving partnership grants was changed from block grants which could be used to fund continuing operations to grant proposals for specific ministry projects. The loss of $65,000 out of a $350,000 annual budget was significant, according to the Rev. Canon James Cox, diocesan treasurer.
Who is ‘bank rolling’ Calvary?
Do we have ‘sub rosa’ support from ECUSA or revisionist/progressive action groups involved? If so Calvary should, in the interest of ‘open communication, let all concerned know the facts.
The link appears to be defective…
#1 In the long term it really doesn’t matter. No matter what the context, when not-for-profit organizations start suing each other (recall United Way’s troubles some years back) then the only vector possible is “down” for all parties concerned. Unlike normal corporations, there are no profitable parts of the business over which to prorate the increased “overhead” of legal bills. Then when the leadership on all levels appears to be more concerned with legal issues than pastoral issues, the pledges generally stop coming in.
Correct [url=http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=3480]link[/url] for the article
Thks #3
A great line from the link
“We’ve had financial problems for 105 years, I will not let this diocese die.â€
-Bishop Adams
Actually bishop, Chancellor Beers won’t let your diocese leave, whether it is bankrupt or no.
Do we have ‘sub rosa’ support from ECUSA or revisionist/progressive action groups involved? If so Calvary should, in the interest of ‘open communication, let all concerned know the facts.
We certainly have had a hard time getting that info from many of the orthodox organizations.
$500K that could be going to the blessed MDGs. Thanks to the radical secularists at Calvary Episcopal Museum and Performance Hall, it isn’t.
RE: “We certainly have had a hard time getting that info from many of the orthodox organizations.”
Nonsense. We’re all funded by Ahmanson and the IRD. I’m surprised you have not read the many earnest and ominously toned exposes on this by Jim Naughton. And surely you have read the Report on Property by the HOB committee which was equally ominous and sounded remarkably like Jim Naughton’s language as well.
But for Ahmanson and the IRD, everybody in the ECUSA pews would be happy and pledging more, and the converts would be flooding into ECUSA, because in actuality the vast majority of Americans really appreciate and value Muslim/Christian priests, Druid/Christian priests, books on Love Spells and Potions in Episcopal bookstores, Clown Eucharists, and shrines to Buddha and Shinto in the worship halls.
But Ahmanson and the IRD had to go and force the Episcopal church to consecrate a non-celibate homosexual as a bishop, engineer the first emergency Primates meeting ever, figure out how to get a number of Global South Primates to recall a few scant verses in Holy Scripture that appeared opposed to enforced boy prostitution in the Temple of Diana, then somehow infiltrate the households of various laypeople and inform them of the news.
They did that by creating an unholy number of blogs, populating them with thousands of “viewers” [HAH] and hundreds of commenters [HAH], and staffing them with a number of cardboard-cutout “personalities”, many of them pretentiously under-40 in order to nefariously combat the idea that the young people are all growing up like weeds and becoming the open-minded, communal, affirming, dolphin-like, inclusive folks we all know that they are.
If only the 14-member staff of the IRD could be jailed somehow and all of Ahmanson’s money given to a highly successful organization like the reputable and trusted United Nations, we would none of us be talking about this on this very blog.
I have it on good authority, in fact, that the blog host here at T19 is off in Oxford somewhere getting his annual instructions from Ahmanson, a shadowy figure who calls all of us “his angels” and whom we hear from only in crisis.
And I thought that Kendall was an Illuminati…
On the money thing, the total diocesan assessment for Calvary in 2004 was 118,399.44 10.5% of the diocese’s entire assessments. As of August of that year, Calvary had placed $104,967.83 in escrow. The diocese did file a motion to vacate the order that placed the funds in escrow, but due to settlement of the case, it was not ruled on. But the court ordered distribution of the escrow account, (probably based on the undisclosed settlement) was $50,000 to the Diocese and the balance to Calvary. In November of 2005, pursuant to court order 10/14/2005, Calvary, having petitioned the court for enforcement of the settlement, again started paying into escrow its diocesan assessment (not including insurance fees etc.) Given the percentage of the total assessments to Calvary, given in the first round of litigation and the final distribution, it seems to be a very difficult thing to plan for. If the diocese had budgeted for the 118.4k and got 50k What exactly to diocesan planners mean by the Calvary shortfall for 2007? Are they thinking they will lose all of it, some of it, or just experience some liquidity problems while they wait for a positive court ruling?, There is another potential monkey wrench:
A Dr. Harvey from St. Stephen’s Sewickey intervened in round 1 litigation claiming that funds from his church were being diverted to the Network, an alleged violation of fiduciary trust. Are there other “re-appraiser” churches likely to initiate litigation? If so, what percentage of the diocesan budget do they represent? This has got to be miserable to anticipate and plan for.
There doesn’t seem to be anything here about how the Diocese of Pittsburgh is using funds allocated for the national church assessment. According to Calvary’s filings, payments to the national church have been suspended? It would seem, in keeping with the court settlement, that parishes that wished to send their portion of funds to TEC could directly do so, and, for the other churches, this would not be an issue as they would be happier to see them used to support the diocese or the Network. But, if other churches or TEC enters into this me lee with new litigation,this might be an issue.
The Network does not file a 990 because it sees itself as a church organization and, unlike the AAC, for example or IRD, if the IRS agrees that it is a church organization, it is not obligated to. I would assume some of Calvary’s defense funds are coming from PEP members, and other affluent individuals. I have no idea whether or not TEC is providing any support. But I can not imagine that TEC attorneys are not doing their best, in light of the confidentiality agreement that appears to still be in force, to at least keep up with the legal strategies that are being employed.
Link is fixed.
Apologies for the problem.
There is no mandatory assessment required of dioceses by the TEC. Thus no funds need to be allocated for a national church “assessment” by the Diocese of Pittsburgh. However, prior to 1997 the Diocese of Pittsburgh traditionally sent about 16% of the funds collected by its own mandatory assessments to the national church. Since 1997, ten years ago, where that 16% goes is up to the individual parish. The annual budget always reflects exactly where the “non-diocesan” contribution ends up. The 2006 budget shows that 14 parishes are still sending all of their “non-diocesan” contribution to the national church and 2 others are sending a partial amount. The other 50+ parishes are sending these funds to over 30 different places, which you can find broken down by detail in the actual budget. The largest recipient is ACN with over $34,000 from this allocation.
Not even close. In May, 2007 Calvary Church began paying its diocesan assessment into escrow, pursuant to the reopening of its lawsuit in December 2006, previously settled October 2005. The 2007 assessment of $116,820 will now not be received by the diocese, accounting for the 2007 shortfall. The 2008 budget is also going to assume nothing from Calvary Church plus of course additional legal expenses.