Joint Budget Committee to consider dozens of General Convention resolutions seeking funding

[Episcopal News Service – Linthicum Heights, Maryland] Executive Council’s Joint Budget Committee this week is meeting here with The Episcopal Church’s presiding officers and executive staff to consider dozens of General Convention funding requests totaling more than $5 million over three years.

In June, when bishops and deputies met in Louisville, Kentucky, they approved a $143 million churchwide budget plan for 2025-27. The plan set aside $2 million to apply toward funding resolutions that the 81st General Convention adopted outside of what is already budgeted.

The Joint Budget Committee, meeting Sept. 23-25 at the Maritime Conference Center in suburban Baltimore, now is tasked with reviewing and prioritizing those additional funding requests. They range from grant programs that support the church’s ministries to the creation of new task forces to study a range of issues.

The committee then will recommend funding some of those requests, with final approval by Executive Council, the church’s governing body between meetings of General Convention. Executive Council’s next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 7-10 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Participants in this week’s discussions include House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris and Presiding Bishop-elect Sean Rowe, who starts his nine-year term on Nov. 1. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is not attending. The 13-member Joint Budget Committee is chaired by the Rev. Patty Downing, a priest from the Diocese of Delaware, and includes a mix of bishops, other clergy and lay leaders from across the church. This is the first three-year budgeting cycle that has been overseen by the committee, under a new streamlined process created by General Convention in 2022.

“My hope is that the inaugural process of reconciling the triennial budget with the actions of General Convention will be led by the movement of the Holy Spirit that we experienced throughout General Convention,” Downing told Episcopal News Service in a written statement before the meeting. “This, along with input from the Executive Leadership Team, the Presiding Bishop-elect and staff will guide us in our presentation to the Executive Council.”

Downing declined in advance to provide ENS with the spreadsheet of budget requests that the committee is reviewing this week. To report on those requests, ENS searched the 396 resolutions that were considered by the 81st General Convention and found at least 43 approved resolutions that included spending requests totaling about $5.6 million.

That total, however, likely overstates the new spending that the Joint Budget Committee will consider recommending. Some funding requested by the adopted General Convention resolutions may already be included in the $143 million budget plan for the next three years.

More information:

Adopted 2025-27 churchwide budget plan
Resolution search from 2024 General Convention
Resolutions with funding requests, as identified by ENS

The approved budget, for example, authorizes $375,000 for the Becoming Beloved Community grant program that supports dioceses’ and congregations’ racial healing initiatives. Resolution D016, however, asks the church to spend more – $1 million – on those grants.

Resolution A045 contains the largest spending request, $1.7 million to support church-planting initiatives, including $1.3 million to continue an ongoing churchwide grant program. The budget plan already includes $1.5 million over the next three years for those grants, $500,000 for congregational redevelopment and $100,000 for additional training and resources.

Of the 43 resolutions identified by ENS, 32 are related to task force creation, resource development, translations of written materials and data collection and analysis.

The task force requests average less than $50,000 each, primarily for in-person meetings. Task force topics include migration, pacifism, artificial intelligence, youth formation, the South Sudanese Anglican diaspora and “countering the colonial mindset.” Some of the costs associated with those task forces already are included in the three-year budget line item for “interim bodies of the General Convention.” That line sets aside about $1.5 million, to be divided among all interim bodies, including standing commissions, agencies and boards.

The several requests to fund resource development also would support a variety of initiatives. Resolution A111, for example, asks for $10,000 to create resources that would assist Episcopalians in holding online and hybrid in-person worship services. That resolution was proposed by Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, as was Resolution A130, which asks for $50,000 to create “a digital collection of alternative versions of hymns that address issues of colonialist, racist, white supremacist, imperialistic, and nationalistic language. Resolution A098, proposed by a social justice task force, seeks $40,000 for “website updates, forms development and … staff support” to support global efforts to end fossil fuel use.

Other budget requests are unique to their resolutions. The church’s ethnic ministries would receive $500,000 under Resolution A046. An additional $200,000 would be given to Episcopal Migration Ministries to respond to the victims of forced migration under Resolution D026.

Resolution D023, proposed by deputies, asks for a one-time grant of $200,000 to support the Association for Episcopal Deacons. Resolution A085 calls for $10,000 so more people can attend the Global Mission Advocates Network gathering. Under Resolution A076, the church would commit $165,800 over the next three years to strengthening training in mental health first aid. And Resolution D055 seeks $18,000 to organize and support churchwide celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood.

At least three resolutions relate to the church’s commitment to creation care. Under Resolution D050, the church would spend $315,000 toward meeting its goal of net carbon neutrality by 2030. Resolution B002 asks for $90,000 to establish three Eco-Region Creation Networks based on shared ecosystems and watersheds.

The 2025-27 budget plan already includes about $1.2 million in spending on creation care, including $375,000 for a grant program “to support innovative creation care ministries across the church.” Separately, Resolution A021 has asked Executive Council to draw $3 million from the church’s unrestricted endowment funds to create a loan program that will “help fund capital projects to assist … dioceses, institutions and congregations in moving their operations towards carbon net zero compliance.”

The Joint Budget Committee is expected to consider A021’s spending request of $90,000, which is the estimated amount needed to administer that new loan program for its first three years.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.