So is this a more \u201cAnglican\u201d\u009d budget, intended to endear ECUSA to the rest of the Anglican Communion?<\/p>\n
Yes and no. For one thing, although the Executive Council had proposed a reduction in the Church\u2019s support for the Anglican Communion Office from the past triennium\u2019s $1,160,000 to $850,000, the PB now proposes to give the ACO just $500,000. At the same time, she proposes to use the savings in what would have been given to the ACO to enlarge the budget of the Church\u2019s own Anglican Communion office by some $500,000 over what the EC had proposed for it (see lines 192-97). This will be touted as \u201ca greater commitment\u201d\u009d to the Anglican Communion, but it is all in moneys to be spent by the PB in adding new staff and in entertaining visiting primates and other Communion dignitaries.
Then again, the PB proposes to raise $1.5 million in new funds for the relief of Haiti, by getting \u201cfaithful Episcopalians\u201d\u009d to donate to match, on a 2 for 1 basis, the $774,000 already budgeted for such relief (lines 18 and 83). This will certainly please the clergy and laity who have been working there to help Haiti recover from its catastrophic earthquake\u201d\u201dbut should something be budgeted which apparently has not even yet been committed, or pledged?<\/p>\n
Other money \u201cfound\u201d\u009d since the EC met has resulted from a refinancing of the Church\u2019s outstanding debt at a lower interest rate (line 329), but achieved by pledging the Church\u2019s donated stocks and bonds as security. This allows the PB to project a payment on principal of $1.5 million per year for the next three years. Indeed, this successful achievement by her Treasurer and his staff may well have contributed to the impetus for a new draft budget.<\/p>\n
However, the PB was not content to book just concrete savings. As noted earlier, she decided to put in phantom pledges in order to redress the budget as \u201cmission-oriented,\u201d\u009d and thus in the process to offer bread and circuses to her constituency.<\/p>\n