$11 Million Budget Adopted
Diocesan Press Service. March 6, 1964 [XIX-1]
A total operating budget for 1964 of $11,862,495 for the educational, social and missionary work of the Episcopal Church was adopted in Greenwich, Conn., Feb. 20 at the annual meeting of the National Council.
The current budget represents an increase of $597, 158 over last year's budget, which was $11,265,337.
During the past year, it was reported, the Episcopal Church spent (from budget and other funds) more than $5 ½ million in the overseas mission field and almost $4 million in domestic mission work.
Harrison Garrett, chairman of the Finance Department, in making the budget report, noted that "it is encouraging that diocesan quotas are at a higher level than ever before."
The Baltimore layman explained that "the response of pledges to quotas made it possible to avoid cuts in the general church program carried forward from 1963 and, in fact, made it possible to add some $300,000 in new work for 1964."
Mr. Garrett pointed out that there were overpayments of diocesan quotas in 1963 from 18 dioceses. Southern Ohio and Ohio alone were responsible for an additional $112,000.
Other over-payments were made by the dioceses of Delaware, Virginia, Alabama, East Carolina, Fond du Lac, New Hampshire, South Dakota, New Mexico and Southwest Texas, Western Kansas, Alaska, Southern Virginia, Florida, Eau Claire, Milwaukee, Quincy, and Arizona.
Already, it is predicted from 1964 diocesan pledges toward the current budget that their outlays for national church work in 1964 will exceed those of 1963 by $633, 965, for a record total of $10,631,968.
Other income, on which the 1964 budget is based, comes from the following sources: $404,332 from the United Thank Offering; $725,000 from Trust Funds; $63,195 from the Reserve for Contingencies; and $38,000 from other sources.
Allocations to National Council departmental and general division work are: Overseas, $4,643,269; Home, $3,014,907; Christian Education, $591,447; Christian Social Relations, $305,440; Promotion, $507,236; Finance, $247,415; General Division of Women's Work, $210,925; General Division of Laymen's Work, $63,535; General Division of Research and Field Study, $102,296; administrative costs, $762,762.
Other appropriations: $159,000 for The Episcopalian, official church publication; $370,000, World Relief and Interchurch Aid; $600,000, Revolving Loan Fund and Grants; $60,000, American Church Building Fund; $15,000, American Churches in Europe; $134, 263, interdenominational agencies; $75, 000, other items.
The Rev. Canon Almon R. Pepper, director of the Department of Christian Social Relations and also charged with over-seeing the World Relief and Interchurch Aid program, reported that during 1963 Episcopalians dispersed $692,188 through the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief and Interchurch Aid.
Of that sum, $347,499 came from the National Council budget and the remainder from contributions to the Presiding Bishop's Fund.
World Relief and Interchurch Aid funds were expended as follows: $111,112.50 to project programs of the far-flung Anglican Communion, with the largest amount going for scholarships for overseas students; $68, 247 to further the work of the "Wider Episcopal Fellowship" (Old Catholic Churches, the Spanish Reformed Church, the Lusitanian Church in Portugal, the Philippine Independent Church, Church of South India, etc.); $32,000 to Eastern Orthodox Churches; $90,262 to the World Council of Churches, mainly for refugee resettlement and support of emergency disaster programs; $148, 817 to Church World Service for food, shelter, clothing, self-help projects, vocational training; $209,799 to the Episcopal Church relief program largely for aid to Cuban refugees and to flood and hurricane damaged places, such as Haiti; $31, 950 to the programs of various agencies such as refugee education programs, International Christian Youth Exchange, Heifer Project, Inc., etc..