The Executive Council approved a draft budget and its Blue Book Report for presentation to General Convention. Episcopal News Service writes:
The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council Jan. 11 approved a draft budget for the 2016-2018 triennium that is based on reducing the amount of money asked of dioceses to 15 percent by the last year of the triennium.
In a related move, council agreed to establish a Diocesan Assessment Review Committee to work with dioceses that do not to meet the full churchwide asking.
The Episcopal Church’s three-year budget is funded primarily by pledges from the church’s dioceses and regional mission areas. Those entities are currently asked annually to contribute 19 percent of their income from two years earlier, minus $120,000.
Council’s draft budget increases that exemption to $175,000. Its revenue projection is based on asking the church’s dioceses and regional mission areas to give 18 percent of their income to fund the 2016 budget, 16.5 percent for the 2017 budget and 15 percent in 2018.
The budget is far from final. Council must give (Joint Rule II.10.c.ii) its draft budget to the General Convention’s Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance (PB&F) no less than four months before the start of the next meeting of convention (essentially by February of convention year). The budget will be released to PB&F and the rest of the church in early February, said Bishop Mark Hollingsworth, chair of council’s Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission (FFM).
Resolutions of Executive Council from this meeting are here
posted by Ann Fontaine
Image: Presiding Bishop at Executive Council meeting (ENS)