Money May Replace Sex in Headlines at General Convention
Episcopal News Service. June 15, 1994 [94121]
Mike Barwell, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Southern Ohio
Facing a projected $5 million shortfall in 1995 because of diminishing support of the church's national program -- and already in the midst of significant staff and budget cuts for the second time in three years -- the 71st General Convention of the Episcopal Church must decide what kind of structures will carry its ministry into a new millennium.
Caught up in debates ranging from sexuality studies, how to deal with racism in the church and society, and pockets of resistance to the 20-year practice of ordaining women as priests, hundreds of clergy, laity and bishops in the Episcopal Church will be asked to adopt a wide-ranging plan which is part of a move to restructure the national operations and cut costs.
The way money is collected and spent increasingly becomes a metaphor for the glue that holds together the Episcopal Church. While money supports what the local and national church can do together as a community of Christians -- providing support for ministry, advocacy, and community involvement -- it also can be used as a form of protest.
"Money has replaced sex at the top of the church's agenda," said Bishop Don Wimberly of Lexington, Kentucky, at a finance committee meeting earlier this year.
The financial pinch comes in the wake of years of patchwork solutions and rising tensions between the cost of national church operations and support from the church's 118 dioceses. Local discomfort with controversial issues and very real repercussions from the recent recession have added to the church's financial anxiety. That discomfort became sharply apparent during a three-year listening process undertaken by the church's Executive Council.
Responding to dozens of requests to ease the financial burden placed on dioceses, the Executive Council in January proposed a massive restructuring to trim staff and eliminate or consolidate programs. The proposed funding solution also includes a simpler formula for calculating how much support each diocese will provide, reducing national church revenues by more than $7.9 million in 1995.
If approved by General Convention, it is estimated that 76 of the 99 domestic dioceses will pay less, but 23 dioceses will pay more.
The proposed formula will ask dioceses to pay a flat rate ranging between 15-21 percent of the income they actually receive from member congregations.
The proposed changes make more sense when compared with the existing formula. Dioceses currently are asked to pay a percentage of the reported income from 7,391 congregations, which in 1992 totaled $1.243 billion.
The existing formula asks dioceses to pay two amounts; an apportionment of 3.75 percent of net disposable income to support national church operations; and 0.27 percent to support the costs of the General Convention held every three years.
The complicated process has, admittedly, become unwieldy, according to Episcopal Church treasurer Ellen Cooke.
While total income and assets seem large, and actually increased by 9 percent since 1991, dioceses often cannot collect an equitable amount from parishes, since parish income is not "taxable" under diocesan formulas.
At the same time, dioceses are having trouble receiving full support from congregations for their own operations, primarily because of local economic stress. During the past three years, a number of dioceses have informed the national church they would be unable, or unwilling, to pay the full amount requested approved in 1991.
The simpler proposed formula asks for a graduated percentage in four income ranges, based on the income dioceses actually receive from congregations.
Based on projected 1995 income, the formula calls for:
- 13 dioceses with income of $500,000 would pay 15 percent;
- 10 dioceses with income of $500,000-$1 million would pay 17 percent;
- 43 dioceses with income of $1-2 million would pay 19 percent;
- 24 diocese with income over $2 million would pay 21 percent. The proposed formula would raise slightly more than $29 million in 1995, a decrease in total revenues of $7.9 million, to support all operating and General Convention costs in a new unified budget.
The formula also would use projected current-year income, instead of reports which reflect a three-year lag in information.
While that is a riskier financial base, Cooke admitted, it will present a more realistic picture at the diocesan level. "We'll have a simpler formula that will allow us to live and work together," Cooke said. "The new formula responds to what the dioceses said," Cooke added. " We will be living in the same reality."
Quick reactions brought a measured response from the committee responsible for proposing the funding changes.
Dioceses, especially those 23 being asked to pay higher percentages to the national church, may need time to adjust to the new formula, members of the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance [PB&F] agreed in late April.
While the committee did not change the proposal being sent to convention deputies, they did agree that they may have to consider a "step-down" and "step-up" approach over several years to allow dioceses and the national church to adjust to the new funding plan.
Dioceses projected to be hardest hit, mostly in the West and South, will be faced with increases, some substantial. Representatives of those dioceses already have said they would have difficulty meeting the new formula and want a plan by which they could move gradually toward the full asking.
Any changes to the restructuring plan or funding formula will be aired through resolutions and during hearings scheduled in Indianapolis.
PB&F committee members have admitted they want to avoid a situation like the one at the 1991 convention when, after bishops and deputies approved the national budget, many dioceses independently voted cuts in their support to the national church, which resulted in the elimination of programs and staff layoffs in 1991 and this year.
While the new funding plan has received some favorable reactions, especially from dioceses projected to benefit from lower askings, anxiety about the future will flow into the debates in August.
As Executive Council member Judy Conley of Iowa observed in April, the church is "embarking on uncharted waters. We don't know if the dioceses will respond as we hope by picking up ministries at the local level. If we run into uncharted waters, how do we hold the mission [of the church] together?" Some critics have charged that the funding plan is "Reaganomics" at the national church level. President Reagan's economic recovery programs advocated decentralized governmental support for a variety of economic programs. "Trickle-down" economics theories projected that freeing more money at the local level would boost the economy, create more jobs, and reduce costs. Some of the "casualties" of those policies ended up on church doorsteps, in soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
The philosophy behind the restructuring plan proposes that reducing the amount of money sent to the national church will free-up dollars which can then support local, diocesan, regional and some national programs. Critics suggest that more money at the local level is likely to stay at the local level, rather than support programs and staff, such as foreign missionaries, being cut at the national level.
"That's a very real danger, and something we will have to guard against," said Bishop George Hunt of Rhode Island, a senior member of PB&F. Hunt noted that one of the hopes for the proposed changes is that they will strengthen the provincial system. "But that will cost more money," he said, "and then we also have to look at our smaller congregations, some of which are just barely hanging on.
"The decisions are not easy and the needs are great," Hunt said. The inability of dioceses to support a national church operation is not necessarily a reflection of only economic hard times, or of protests against national policies, Hunt said. "Some bishops and dioceses are encouraging a shift in polity" to protest issues of ordination or sexuality, he warned. "Ultimately, the price to be paid for that loose attitude is that congregations will begin saying the same thing to dioceses."
Hunt also noted that the "dis-ease" many bishops and dioceses are sensing with the proposed budget cuts "will continue until we have a full airing of views at the General Convention hearings -- which will be much more vigorous than in years past." Those voices "are important and must be heard," he said.
Hunt added that the proposals are the result of "a full and careful analysis of what a national church can do. Much of what we have cut at the national level is a reflection that we were trying to do too many things. Whether we make the best choices remains to be seen."
The new funding plan and restructuring proposals may respond to a crunch at the diocesan level, but program leaders and their constituencies are not universally supportive of the proposals.
Among the proposed cuts, which include staff and program dollars to organizations outside the national church offices, are phasing out of support for foreign missionaries as well as curtailment of domestic programs addressing poverty, minority advocacy, work with urban and rural poor, AIDS ministries and other community activities.
Before Executive Council had adjourned from its meeting in Norfolk in January, the first salvo of protest was fired across the continent from the National Episcopal AIDS coalition meeting in San Francisco after they learned the AIDS advocacy office would be closed as part of the restructuring and budget tightening.
Other groups, including the Episcopal Urban Caucus, the Episcopal Council of Indian Ministries and the Appalachian People's Service Organization, sent out frantic letters of concern and protest as their financial support was slashed.
Diane Porter, senior executive for program at the national church offices in New York, said that "there are some rough times ahead" for a number of traditionally well-supported programs. Defending the cuts, she has argued that restructuring and cutting dollars and staff "is the only way we can break things open and convince people that they must be in better partnership with each other. Change is always difficult," Porter added.