Bread and Circuses: The Presiding Bishop’s Proposed Budget
Working with her staff, Episcopal Church (USA) Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori has, just two weeks before the start of the 2012 General Convention in Indianapolis, published a surprise draft budget for the Church’s next triennium. (“Surprise” in the sense that no one in the rest of the Church saw it coming.) She proposes the draft as an alternative to the mess that came out of the Executive Council’s deliberations which finished in January, whose substantial shortcomings I covered in this earlier article.
The Executive Council’s proposal went, by canon, to the General Convention’s Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget & Finance. It has the canonical responsibility to propose a final budget to the Convention, which must adopt one for the next three years. However, PB&F cannot alter the Executive Council’s draft until it begins meeting the day before General Convention opens. Thus it is unclear what it can do with the Presiding Bishop’s proposal, as well, before its initial meeting in Indianapolis.
The budget proposed by the EC was the product of a year-long, tortuous process which attempted to include input from all sectors of the Church. In the process, the staff at 815 Second Avenue—including the Treasurer, Kurt Barnes, and the Chief Operating Officer, Bishop Stacy Sauls, were largely bypassed until the last minute. This left no time for staff to ensure that the budget conformed to their projections—or even that it was balanced. (As published at the close of the EC meeting in January, the budget had a $1,250,000 gap between income and expenses, which resulted in a mostly imaginary projected surplus of $1,567,722.)
Recriminations for the fiasco were passed back and forth among the EC members and 815’s staff. Just three weeks ago, the latter produced an annotated edition for the benefit of PB&F which attempted to correct, or at least explain, some of the more glaring errors. However, it appears that the Presiding Bishop (whether at the urging of her staff or not) had by then determined to take matters into her own hands, and mold a draft budget more to her liking.
The result is a budget calculated to appeal to the leftist ideology (think: social justice and world betterment) and twisted theology of both those at 815 and who will form the great majority at Indianapolis. Instead of the old divisions between categories of “Canonical, Corporate and Program”, the PB’s budget is split into categories of “Mission, Governance and Administration.” By moving some of the items previously classed as “Canonical” and calling them “Program” (in the former terms), she changes the name of the enlarged Program category to “Mission”, and then claims that her budget devotes the lion’s share of the Church’s budget to mission. Along the way, she has reorganized the grouping of the sub-items under headings that match the “Five Marks of Mission” (as originally developed by the Anglican Consultative Council).
But in doing so, she strains the categories quite a bit. For example, she groups the budget for all of ECUSA’s Communications Office and services—from maintaining websites and running the Episcopal News Service, down to the translators employed at General Convention—under the First Mark of Mission: “Proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom” (in the process shortening it to just “Proclaim the Good News”). It seems doubtful that one could justify every activity of the Communications Office as spreading the Gospel—but then, the budget would not look as devoted to “Mission”, would it?
So is this a more “Anglican” budget, intended to endear ECUSA to the rest of the Anglican Communion?
Yes and no. For one thing, although the Executive Council had proposed a reduction in the Church’s support for the Anglican Communion Office from the past triennium’s $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’s 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 “a greater commitment” 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 “faithful Episcopalians” 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—but should something be budgeted which apparently has not even yet been committed, or pledged?
Other money “found” since the EC met has resulted from a refinancing of the Church’s outstanding debt at a lower interest rate (line 329), but achieved by pledging the Church’s 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.
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 “mission-oriented,” and thus in the process to offer bread and circuses to her constituency.
As the basis for her newfound dedication to mission, the PB touts “zero-based budgeting”, which allowed her to review all the Church’s mission priorities from scratch, without regard to what it had been spending on them previously. But her approach has produced some genuine anomalies, which are not explained in any of the extensive comments accompanying her proposal. For instance, she has announced that, all of a sudden, the Church under her budget will spend $2 million on new church planting over the next triennium. “That’s wonderful!” I hear the Episcoleft already shouting.
But look again: she cuts the budget of for Congregational and Pastoral Development by more than 25%. So who will get the $2 million to spend on planting new missions and parishes? (Oops: scratch “missions” in that last sentence. She also cuts the Director of Mission’s Office by almost one-half.) Perhaps the idea is to hand it back to certain Dioceses, in exchange for their more generous commitments?
(That is total speculation, of course—but the PB’s budget invites it, because it allocates so many millions of dollars for show-window causes, without specifying how and by whom—other than by the PB herself—the money will be spent.)
While making some specifically painful cuts (see below), the PB’s budget also is “balanced” only by more flimflammery: she achieves a supposed “surplus” for the triennium of $124,777 (after allowing for the $4.5 million in debt repayment) only by plugging in an across-the-board cut (5%) of $632,582 in Governance expenses (line 315), and a further $546,586 in unallocated reductions in the budget for the Church’s Finance department (line 333). The former cut is to be made in consultation with the EC; the latter by management alone. Thus in reality, the budget—which already removes 18.5 paid staff positions—is still out of balance by over one million dollars. (Subtract lines 315 and 333 from line 369.)
This is why it appears that the PB’s proposal is calculated more to look good and to appeal to the Episcoleft, rather than to be pragmatic and address realities. It promotes only the gain, while hiding most of the pain.
For the detail-minded, there is more, still more, along the same lines:
The PB and her Treasurer have been creative in finding more income than the EC was told it had to work with. After consulting with several wealthy dioceses, she has raised projected diocesan commitments by nearly $3 million over what EC had projected—but again, these are not yet written pledges, only assurances. That, plus the $1.5 million in anticipated Haiti donations, boosts the show budget by nearly $4.5 million.
Then she produces more discretionary funds to spread around by cutting items voted on by Executive Council: she has cut out nearly $800,000 in other grants approved (but not individually allocated) by EC, which included $423,000 to Domestic Missionary Partnership, and sums for ministries to the disabled, the deaf, and the Appalachians (line 165 - which misstates by over $600,000 the amount of the EC’s draft budget for the lines referenced in its budget, and so makes the cut appear to be “only” $150,000).
Some commenters I have read think that the PB is budgeting for more staff at 815, not less. However, I think that is only an appearance, caused by the insistence of her COO, Bishop Sauls, that the budget reflect a 2% annual cost-of-living increase for all personnel, plus an 8% annual increase in their health-care premiums. If you look at line 381, you will see that this produces an increase of some $500,000 over the numbers that EC had in its budget, and the increases for those purposes are noted consistently throughout the document. If there are going to be staff increases (and there may well be), they are hidden for the time being in the blanket allocations for popular causes, which show no detail whatsoever.
I could go on, but what would be the point? The PB has tossed a shiny new golden snitch into ECUSA’s crazy game of budget Quidditch. It is calculated to appeal at the same time that it distracts. The resulting shenanigans at GC 2012 may be of interest to Harry Potter fans, but they will in the end form only another chapter in the Decline and Fall of the Episcopal Church (USA)™.
Panem et circenses, as Gibbon would say.
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The only thing I looked for and noticed was that the allocation for legal/litigation expenses was still there and even expected to decline because according to her break away group activity is lessening. Hmmm. If she truly understands the church’s mission, that expense should be far less as she would realize suing other Christians is not right and should not be done. Still deluded. Still needs prayer.
[1] Posted by SC blu cat lady on 6-23-2012 at 08:06 PM · [top]
It will be interesting to see how this plays in Indianapolis. If Schori’s budget gains momentum, then the power of the PB’s office increases. But if it fizzles…
[2] Posted by Undergroundpewster on 6-24-2012 at 08:29 AM · [top]
Obviously, the fact that there’s a second budget prepared by a group not normally involved in that process confirms what we already know - that there’s chaos in the TEC leadership. The second budget is coming out so soon before GC that I can’t imagine that intelligent people (if there are any) will have time to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it.
So, GC will probably end up passing some sort of patchwork budget, that will be the result of infighting and discord.
Nice.
[3] Posted by Ralph on 6-24-2012 at 01:21 PM · [top]
Re [3] As Nancy Pelosi might say, “We need to pass this budget so that we can see what’s in it.”
[4] Posted by Don+ on 6-24-2012 at 02:13 PM · [top]
So Curmudgeon, she reduces the contribution to the Anglican Communion Office by $660,000, and at the same time adds $500,000 to TEC’s ACO. I will call the former the ACO and the latter the TECACO.
That surely implies a major change in strategy? (well, not in her aims, but certainly in how she intends to achieve them)
The ACO is an extension of the Lambeth Palace bureaucracy which it uses to run the central functions of the Anglican Communion. KJS has clearly decided that the ACO has not met her desires (or is incapable of so doing) and its time to pull the plug on it. This is going to irritate Lambeth, but of course ABC doesn’t care, since it won’t affect him, and there is no ABC-elect. I would think jobs at Lambeth will have to go, and perhaps that’s no bad thing.
At the same time, she is going to spend a lot more (via the TECACO) on wining and dining prelates and clergy in other provinces, but perhaps also on foreign aid. Any idea what the purpose of this is? The short answer is to increase TEC’s influence, but where and why?
[5] Posted by MichaelA on 6-25-2012 at 03:52 AM · [top]
“For instance, she has announced that, all of a sudden, the Church under her budget will spend $2 million on new church planting over the next triennium.”
Interesting. The speaker on church growth at ACNA’s latest conference was reported as advocating that as little as possible should be spent on direct support of church plants, i.e. that the more they are forced to stand on their own, the more they thrive. Of course ACNA in reality spends a lot on church-planting, but most of it is indirect, and a lot of it is spent by dioceses and even individual parishes. I somehow can’t see KJS releasing funds to be spent by dioceses, let alone parishes.
I wonder if she or her staff have any real idea how churches are planted and nurtured?
[6] Posted by MichaelA on 6-25-2012 at 03:57 AM · [top]
“The PB has tossed a shiny new golden snitch into ECUSA’s crazy game of budget Quidditch. It is calculated to appeal at the same time that it distracts.”
Nice line!
[7] Posted by MichaelA on 6-25-2012 at 03:59 AM · [top]
A certain member of the Executive Council (on the distaff side, but still with a D.D. - albeit it honoris causa) has come apart at the seams with the publication of the Presiding Bishop’s proposed budget, and lets her have it between the eyes.
Along the way, however, she makes this monumental (for a member of the Executive Council, at least) misstatement:
She seems to be wholly ignorant of the fact that by ECUSA’s Constitution and Canons, nominees for the post of presiding bishop are selected first by a nominating committee which consists of members from both the House of Bishops and from the House of Deputies. Then the House of Bishops selects one from among the persons so nominated to be its presider (as is fully appropriate), but their choice must be confirmed by a vote of the House of Deputies before it can take effect. So what about that process leaves the House of Deputies out of the process for electing a presiding bishop?
The women at the top of ECUSA are in a public brawl, and as usual, the timid males on the scene are just trying to avoid the claws and scratches. Did anyone foresee such a result from deciding for the first time in 2006 to choose women to lead the Church, both as the presiding bishop and as the president of the House of Deputies?
[8] Posted by A. S. Haley on 6-25-2012 at 12:18 PM · [top]
My experience in several smaller situations has led me to conclude that when an organization is dying (physically, spiritually, functionally, whatever) and yet significant monies remain, trouble - great trouble - invariably follows. Giving up purpose or propriety in order to retain control of funds is a mark and not a mark of mission. It will be interesting, in the sense of the Chinese curse of living in “interesting” times, what the reactions will be at General Convention. Thanking God I am a lowly mission priest.
[9] Posted by Don+ on 6-25-2012 at 12:46 PM · [top]
From Katie Sherrod’s article linked by Curmudgeon at #8:
“Is it so obvious that church planting is best handled by a fund controlled by the Church Center that we should feel comfortable committing $2 million to a church planting proposal made for the first time just 10 days before General Convention?”
Indeed. Liberals are not just bad at church planting, they are incapable of it. The only way they can get churches planted is by hanging on the backs of orthodox Christians who do the actual work. Whilst Ms Sherrod would never admit that this is true, I expect she is aware of it. So she rightly asks why would TEC be putting its entire allowance for church planting into a central fund controlled by a few ultra-liberal bishops? Particularly when ACNA, which has already demonstrated some success in church-planting in its short history, seems to have the opposite concept?
Ms Sherrod is clearly suspicious that the $2 Million will never be used for anything like church planting. And well she may.
[10] Posted by MichaelA on 6-25-2012 at 05:35 PM · [top]
Also, reading over the comments to Sherrod’s piece and the commnts on Episcopal Cafe, it is plain that the many dissenters from the TEC budget simply do not understand the real fix they are in. They talk about “going back to having a part-time Primus who also has to be a diocesan”, and “we can address the long term issue of whether or not laity and non-bishops will have a voice in the governance of TEC”!
Yes, I am sure KJS, Stacy Sauls et al are just going to let those things happen….
What planet are these TEC members on? They stood by and cheered when KJS and her cronies purged TEC of many orthodox bishops and clergy (and some of these really were only marginally “orthodox”, yet far too much so for the thought police of TEC). They did not think about the lessons taught by the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and many others - what ALWAYS happens after the ‘capitalists’ are purged…?
Its all there in Orwell. For those willing to read and think.
[11] Posted by MichaelA on 6-25-2012 at 05:55 PM · [top]
Well, yes and no.
Apparently, Ms. Sherrod’s torn between thinking the PB is La Belle Dame Sans Merci and, well, ...“After all, we all admire the presiding bishop as much as the rest of the church. She is a Holy Rock Star.”
HOLY ROCK STAR?
[12] Posted by The Little Myrmidon on 6-25-2012 at 06:20 PM · [top]
How does it happen that “staff costs” for Episcopal Migration Ministries could reasonably be projected to increase by $1,185,818 in the short time period between the recent publication of the EC’s budget and the unveiling of the PB’s proposed budget???? Is this projected increase in payments to staff due to increased “staff input?”
[13] Posted by Sparky on 6-25-2012 at 08:34 PM · [top]
Lots of good comments here, and some very good questions—thank you all, especially MichaelA, for moving this along. I’ve been very busy dealing with Supreme Court stuff today on the blogs, and with ECUSA litigation stuff at the office, but I hope to be able to shed some light on those questions soon. (A quick answer for Sparky [#13]: Staff costs for resettling refugees for the Government under EMM are totally dependent on the amount of refugees the government refers to the program. The costs are passed through to the government, and are not paid out of ECUSA coffers—notice that total income [line 372] exactly offsets the expense totals of lines 373 and 374. The PB is using figures from April or May, while EC had only figures from last November or so to work with. In just those few months, the Obama administration has apparently greatly boosted the number of refugees that EMM has to work with. Pretty amazing when you are the government with an unlimited checkbook, isn’t it?)
Meanwhile, to keep you on the edge of your seats as GC approaches next week, here is another post by an Episcopal priest and deputy who has had it up to here with all the spinning going on at the topmost levels.
[14] Posted by A. S. Haley on 6-25-2012 at 11:07 PM · [top]
A.S. Haley,
I understand Episcopal Migration Ministries on the TEC level is booked so that income equals expenses, but “staff” is typically a fixed cost, more or less, rather than variable. Are TEC staff who are assigned to EMM paid on a per capita served basis? If (see your#14 above), more money is now being anticipated to be granted by Uncle Sam to TEC (it’s an election year), why is the increase going to pay TEC staff rather than to aid migrants, when “implementation” is at the diocesan not the TEC level? Is TEC just going to grab more of the grants before they are passed down to the dioceses?
How do the 27 recipient dioceses account to TEC for the tremendous amount of grants ($48,825,199 anticipated in 2013-2015 by the PB’s proposal), most of which is to be paid by TEC to these dioceses, other than to support at GC a lobbying budget and sundry GC resolutions designed to perpetuate this system?
Is it the case that TEC gets “a piece of the action,” like a collection agency, by collecting and keeping a percentage of payments made by migrants?
Do you find any significant First Amendment implications in this whole EMM scheme of government monetary sponsorship of a religious association despite the pass through of funds to dioceses?
[15] Posted by Sparky on 6-26-2012 at 06:28 AM · [top]
Sparky (#15), I could be wrong, because I do not have any great details at hand about EMM, but my understanding is that the “Staff” shown in line 373 is the staff in each of the “31 affiliate offices in 27 dioceses” which the PB describes in her remarks on line 371. Thus they would not (for the greatest part, at least) be “staff” hired by 815 itself—the latter are shown on line 88 of the budget. And notice that the PB’s figure on line 88 is some $340K less than what the EC had projected, so she has reduced the HQ staff, while the program is projecting greater usage of the affiliate offices in the various dioceses.
My understanding is that those affiliate offices are subject to program audits by the HHS (government) directly, and that they do not account to ECUSA as such, other than to report their figures, and submit claims for reimbursement through ECUSA.
You ask: “Is it the case that TEC gets “a piece of the action,” like a collection agency, by collecting and keeping a percentage of payments made by migrants?” Well in fact, EMM is a collection agency. It collects from the refugees the loans made to through the International Organization for Migration, an international body that grew out of the aftermath of WWII. Its resettlement operations are extensive, and involve many countries.
The loan collection efforts of EMM provide about $1 million of income to ECUSA currently (see line 13: $2.1 million of loan income, minus line 87: $1.008 million in collection costs). The $2.1 million of income represents 25% of the amounts collected, according to the note on line 13.
[16] Posted by A. S. Haley on 6-26-2012 at 10:23 AM · [top]
One additional thought occurs to me: in the increased EMM numbers for this triennium, I think we are seeing the effects of the “Arab Spring”, which has unsettled hundreds of thousands in North Africa. See, for example, this report from the IOM with regard to Tunisia.
[17] Posted by A. S. Haley on 6-26-2012 at 10:37 AM · [top]
Now, let me address other questions: MichaelA (#5), the shift in the PB’s budget away from the ACO, and in favor of her own domestic ACO, reflects her decision to cement her relations with friendly AC primates through one-on-one contacts. Notice that while EC cut her own office’s “hospitality and entertainment” costs by nearly $5K (line 33), the PB has unilaterally plugged in $45K for “international visitors” (line 194). That speaks volumes to me.
Little Myrmidon (#12), yes, “Holy Rock Star”—you heard that right. KJS is to women in the Church such as Dr. Sherrod what Barack Obama is to people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The hurt is that much more personal when she/he seems to turn on them.
[18] Posted by A. S. Haley on 6-26-2012 at 10:49 AM · [top]
Thanks Curmudgeon. At #14, you link the Anglican Minimalist, who writes:
On one level, this calls for the same sort of bemused incredulity as per my posts above: Who does AM think he is kidding? KJS, Sauls and their cronies have already secured the reins of power and it is laughable to think that calls for them to resign have any teeth whatsoever.
But then AM adds further down:
Now that is a threat that has some teeth. Its not original; indeed, it puts AM in certain company that probably irks him exceedingly!
[19] Posted by MichaelA on 6-28-2012 at 01:52 AM · [top]
One wonders what the point is of the huge sums spent by TEC every three years on General Convention; of having a meeting together of bishops and lay deputies; of the committees they form and charge with various tasks, if at the end of the day they are all bypassed by the Presiding Bishop who ignores all she has been involved with in the preparation of a budget by the GS General Convention Executive Council, and instead just declares Year Zero and presents her own made up [and pretty opaque] budget in its place. This is not in good time, but a short while before GC meets. Why bother with all the expense and effort?
I suspect the truth has something to do with:
1. Collapse of revenues as TEC marches towards 600,000 turning up on a Sunday, if that and those who do unwilling to cough up for the church hierachy to waste.
2. Severe pressure from the huge borrowing that has gone on and the risk to endowment assets, particularly stocks and securites pledged to lenders recently as spending particularly on litigation has wiped out all available cash resources.
3. Panic with a staff realising that their jobs are about to be wiped out; although no one is entirely sure what they all do and what they add to the church.
4. The self-aggrandising and power hunger of the “chief pastor to the Episcopal Church’s 2.4 million members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses, ecumenical officer, and primate”. The list of titles she has taken to herself continues to grow and it is only a few years since she was proposing new sub offices for her control in the four segments of the US. Clearly she wants to be president for life and chief inquisitor and Pope all rolled into one.
5. Complete disregard for canons, constitutional arrangements and the rule of law, the natural enemies of the despot. Much as AMiA has become the Church of Murph, so TEC is becoming the church that Kate rules.
6. An attitude that the rest of the church exists to support the Presiding Bishop and her office staff on the grounds that Katie knows best.
Why would members of the church bother with that? Why bother with the General Convention when it is being turned into the ecclesiastical equivalent of the Supreme Soviet, there just to rubber stamp whatever the Great Ruler thinks up on the spur of the moment?
[20] Posted by Pageantmaster [KJS to Coventry] on 6-28-2012 at 03:26 AM · [top]
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