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Toward GC80: Feedback sought on Episcopal Church draft budget for 2023-2024

November 22, 2021
Office of Public Affairs

All Episcopalians are invited to review and offer comments on The Episcopal Church Executive Council’s draft budget for fiscal years 2023-2024. Feedback must be received by Dec. 15 and can be submitted using this form.

While all feedback is welcome, the Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Finance is particularly seeking the church’s wisdom on three mission and values questions as it pertains to the budget:

  • Are there areas out of alignment with where The Episcopal Church is going?
  • Are there areas where The Episcopal Church is reverting to “empire” behavior or otherwise misusing its power?
  • Are there areas where The Episcopal Church can lessen disparities created by the pandemic?

In drafting the budget, the finance committee asked the church’s Executive Council in 2019 for its three top budget priorities, which were identified as evangelism, racial reconciliation, and care of creation.

In 2021, joint standing committees were additionally invited to reflect on their budget areas in response to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the church. Presiding officers and staff members also provided feedback, all of which was incorporated into a draft budget initially shared with joint standing committees during the summer.

The current budget draft includes the following components and considerations:

  • 15% diocesan assessment, which assumes a 1% increase in diocesan revenue each year
  • 5% draw from the trust
  • 3% cost of living increase
  • While some positions have moved to different departments, staffing has remained at the same level as the last triennium; this budget draft recommends that staffing continue at this level
  • Grant funding is continued to support the important grassroots ministries
  • $3 million has been put aside for General Convention resolutions that may include a resolution from the Presiding Officers’ Working Group for Truth, Reckoning, and Healing
  • An $8 million deficit, which needs to be addressed by the Executive Council Finance Committee and the Program, Budget, and Finance Committee; recommendations and suggestions are welcome in the feedback form

During the church’s October Executive Council meeting in Linthicum Heights, Maryland, the finance committee presented the current budget draft and told members that “we want to ask some hard questions” following opening remarks from the presiding bishop and president of the House of Deputies.

“While The Episcopal Church is healthy, the church is not,” said finance committee member Andrea McKellar. “Our clergy and lay leaders are tired. Parishioners are coming back more slowly than we anticipated.”

McKellar referenced a recent article in “The Atlantic” by the Rev. Elizabeth Felicetti, a priest at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. In it, Felicetti “wonders if 2022 will be harder than 2020 and 2021,” McKellar said. “She is tired of innovating and pivoting and not being able to hold parishioners’ hands in times of sadness and joy. While this is one story, I know we have all heard from others or are seeing this in our own congregations.”

In light of these and many other challenges, and in keeping with its commitment to transparency, The Episcopal Church hopes to benefit from the expertise of Episcopalians in charting a financial path forward.

Following receipt of feedback and subsequent further edits, the finance committee will present an updated version of the 2023-2024 budget to the Executive Council at its January meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. The budget will then move to the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance, which will work with it through the spring and submit the final version to the General Convention in July in Baltimore, Maryland.

Episcopalians wishing to provide feedback may want to read “Reports to the 80th General Convention,” also known as “The Blue Book,” for a detailed look at the work undertaken by multiple committees, commissions, task forces, boards, and more since the 79th General Convention in 2018.

General Convention
The 80th General Convention of The Episcopal Church will be held July 7-14 in Baltimore, Maryland. Traditionally, General Convention is held every three years to consider the legislative business of the church. The General Convention is the church’s governing body, composed of the House of Bishops—with more than 200 active and retired bishops—and the House of Deputies, with more than 800 clergy and lay deputies elected from the church’s 109 dioceses and two area missions. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the convention was postponed for one year from July 2021.

Contact
Amanda Skofstad

Public Affairs Officer

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