The diocesan budget is always a statement about priorities. It is also a direct reflection of the economic experience of the congregations that fund the budget. Although there is very little new money in the 2005 budget, the budget for next year makes it plain that the mission of the Diocese is our priority and comes first.

The Budget Process
The Diocesan Council prepares a budget to present to the Convention. The Council’s Budget & Finance Committee drafts the budget for the Council. The Rev. Marsha Bacon Glover, Rector of St. Peter’s, Westchester Square, Bronx, chaired the Budget & Finance Committee for the third time. The Committee’s 14 members come from all parts of the Diocese and reflect the diversity of our common life.

Every staff department and every program committee and commission prepares an “asking” for the Budget & Finance Committee to review. A member of the Committee is assigned to speak to the person or group that makes each asking. The Committee carefully weighs each request. Bishop Sisk also meets with the Committee to speak to his priorities for the coming year.
It is then the Committee’s difficult task to present a balanced draft budget to the Council. As has often been the case, the Committee had to trim over $1M in worthwhile askings in order to bring projected expenses in line with income.

The Income Side
The congregations not in the Congregational Support Plan provide most of the diocesan income through the diocesan assessment outlined in Canon 18. The assessment is a progressive formula that has two aspects that help congregations whose income is increasing.

First, the canon calls for averaging two years’ parochial report income before applying the assessment formula. The 2004 assessment is based on the average of the 2001 and 2002 parochial reports, and the 2005 assessment “base” is the average of 2002 and 2003. Parish income is up 4.9% from 2001 to 2003, but, because of averaging the assessment base is up less from 2004 to 2005.

Second, Canon 18 provides that, no matter how much a congregation’s income increases, the assessment cannot increase by more than 12.5% from one year to the next. Next year, 48 of the 137 congregations that pay assessments will benefit from the 12.5% cap on assessment increases for a total of $820,000.

Projected income from assessments in 2005 is up $248,000, or 3%, from 2004.

The contributions of the congregations in the Congregational Support Plan, after rising rapidly in recent years, are scheduled to increase by 1.1% in 2005. One reason for the small increase is the fact that fewer congregations will be in the Plan in 2005. The CSP office considers that two congregations will “graduate” from the Plan in 2005, and the CSP Committee did not approve the applications of six others for an additional term in the Plan. One congregation, St. Andrew’s, New Paltz, will be admitted to the Plan next year.

Highlights of Expenses
The Congregational Support Plan (line 15) is the single largest item in the budget. After several years of “over-budgeting” for support to congregations in the Plan, the 2003 budget was significantly less than the amount that proved to be needed. The 2004 budget is tracking much closer to our actual expenses. However, the Budget & Finance Committee added $225,000 to the CSP budget in 2005 so the line would not be over again.

As always, and especially now, our obligation to the National Church (line 3) is fully funded. We ask our congregations to pay their assessments to the diocese in full; we set an example by showing our commitment to the National Church as the first expense line in the budget.

The 2004 budget included partial funding for a Christian Education Worker. In the 2005 budget, with the departure of the Rev. Dr. Christopher King from the position of Diocesan Youth Worker, the Youth and Christian Ed worker lines have been combined. We except to hire later in 2004 a senior staff person to work with congregations both on their Sunday School and Youth programs.

A new line in the 2005 budget is line 49, called the “Cambridge Consultation,” or “0.7%,” or “The United Nations Millennium Development Goals.” In accordance with 2003 resolutions both at the General Convention and at the diocesan Convention, urging that dioceses and congregations devote 0.7% of their budgets to international development efforts, the Committee was able to achieve partial funding of the 0.7% which will be sent to international development programs. Full funding in 2005 would have been about $56,000.

Although there was very little money to work with, the Budget & Finance Committee and the Council thought it was important to make small but definite increases in certain lines in the Mission and Program section of the budget, including:

In the absence of new funds in the budget the Committee was able to make these increases in the Mission & Program section of the budget only by making cuts in other sections. Here are some of the cutbacks and layoffs that the Budget & Finance Committee and the Council are recommending to the Convention so that the mission priorities of the Diocese can be advanced: