Council Approves Triennial Program and Supporting Budget
Diocesan Press Service. March 3, 1967 [52-2]
The Executive Council looked to the future as it approved a program, with its supporting budget, for the Triennium 1968 - 70 at its annual meeting, Feb. 15 - 16 in Greenwich, Conn.
This program, which will be submitted to the General Convention in September, is the result of more than a year's work by Council members and staff, a year often filled with uncertainty as the planning process was an entirely new one for the Council.
Before previous General Conventions, the Council had computed a traditional line-by-line budget, based on the estimates submitted by the various units of the Council. This year, in contrast, funds were allocated for tasks to be done, and each task was assigned a priority.
The process by which this was done began in early 1966 when a series of statements on the nature of the Church, and its mission in the world today, were adopted.
The Council then determined the goals it hoped to attain during the next Triennium and the strategy necessary to reach these goals. Finally the individual programs necessary to carry out this strategy were determined, and their priorities assigned. Costs were then projected.
The funds necessary to carry out the Council's program, were projected at $16,897,725 for 1968; $18,587,498 for 1969 and $19,516,873 for 1970. These figures will be subject to adjustment by the Presiding Bishop prior to submission to General Convention.
This process resulted, for the first time, in a unified Council program, for the needs of individual units were not pasted together. Each unit subordinated its individual desires to the overall strategy and will obtain funds based upon a priority determined by overall strategy.
Council members expressed their enthusiastic support of the new planning process, and of the resulting program. In a resolution, adopted after the program and budget itself was approved for submission to General Convention, Council members announced themselves "prepared to stand fully behind it (the program and budget)," and pledged "itself to support fully and effectively whatever program is adopted by the General Convention ...by making known to the Church the content and objectives of such program...." It then asked the Presiding Bishop to appoint a committee to plan how such support could be best accomplished. Reflecting the opinion of many members, Stephen Shaddegg, Council member from Phoenix, Ariz., stated: "If the job is worth doing, it is up to us to go out and get the money."
The Rt. Rev. Robert DeWitt, Bishop of Pennsylvania, then brought before Council his feeling that the church could not stop at the budget. He said that there might be worthwhile programs which could not now be anticipated, or which could not be financed wholly through the budget, and that it was the church's responsibility to search for needed funds. Members of the Council agreed with him and passed a resolution calling for a program to secure "special financial resources for the Church's program, other than new general fund requests to the people of the Church." The Council resolution singled out programs which, because of their community service, ecumenical nature or other special features, would commend themselves to foundation or other special support.