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A UMNS Report
By Heather Hahn*
4:00 P.M. ET Nov. 17, 2011
Missouri Area Bishop Robert Schnase consecrates Communion elements at a
worship service at Exploration 2011, a young adult event in St. Louis.
A UMNS photo by Kathy Gilbert.
View in Photo Gallery
The United Methodist Church’s top legislative body next spring will
take up a recommended 2013-16 budget of more than $90 million to
support the denomination’s 157 active and retired bishops.
The Episcopal Fund, paid for by congregational giving, supports the
salaries, housing, travel and other expenses of active bishops as well
as the salaries and benefits of some of their support staff. The fund
also provides for retired bishops, surviving spouses and minor children
of deceased bishops.
The proposed budget — which the General Council on Finance and
Administration set at $90,336,000 — represents a decrease of nearly $4
million, or about 4 percent, from the budget for 2009-12.
The recommended cut is part of a number of budget reductions the
General Council on Finance and Administration has proposed for general
church operations. The proposed cutbacks come after decades of
declining membership in the United States. The denomination's finance
agency also projects that total giving, exclusive of debt payments and
local church benevolences, will flatten in the coming four years.
The U.S. membership supports more than 95 percent of what the
denomination budgets to support general church ministries around the
world.
Meeting the bishops’ expenses will require drawing down $6 million
from the Episcopal Fund’s reserves, Los Angeles Area Bishop Mary Ann
Swenson told the Council of Bishops at its fall meeting Nov. 4. Swenson
is the chair of the finance committee of the Council of Bishops.
The Council of Bishops has accumulated about $12 million in reserves from cost savings over the past seven years.
Some bishops expressed concern that spending reserves would make the bishops appear to be failing to be good stewards.
“That’s going to reflect on the bishops’ budget significantly in the
2016 quadrennium and beyond,” said Washington Area Bishop John R.
Schol, another member of the finance committee. “It will be seen by
leadership and by United Methodists as the bishops not being
responsible in their spending when, in fact, we’re being very
responsible in our spending. We’ve been holding down costs.”
“I think we’re spending our reserves appropriately,” Swenson
later told the United Methodist News Service. She said that if the
bishops maintain their focus on good stewardship and making disciples,
“then we’ll accomplish what our desire is.”
The General Council on Finance and Administration set the
recommended budget with input from the bishops. General Conference, the
denomination’s top lawmaking body, will have final say on the total
general church budget when it next convenes April 24-May 4, 2012, in Tampa, Fla.
Part of overall reductions
The Episcopal Fund is one of The United Methodist Church’s seven apportioned funds
that support general church operations; Africa University in Mutare,
Zimbabwe; historically black United Methodist-related colleges and
universities in the United States; and ministerial education.
The proposed reduction in the Episcopal Fund is part
of the 6.04 percent overall decrease recommended by the General
Council on Finance and Administration for the general church’s 2013-16
budget. The General Council on Finance and Administration’s
proposed budget cuts the World Service Fund, which supports most
general agencies, by about 6.6 percent.
The General Council on Finance and Administration has submitted to
General Conference a total budget of $603 million for all seven
apportioned funds.
Factors that go into budget projections include church membership,
inflation, per-capita disposable income, “giving elasticity” (percent
of giving from increased revenue), net spending and the U.S. gross
domestic product.
The United Methodist Church now has 48 active bishops and 69
retired bishops in the United States. In the central conferences of
Africa, Europe and the Philippines, the denomination has 17 active and
23 retired bishops. At present, retired bishops are temporarily serving
in two episcopal areas in the central conferences and one episcopal
area in the United States.
The 2012 General Conference also will consider proposals to
eliminate three episcopal areas — that is, three bishop positions — in
the United States and add a new episcopal area in the rapidly growing
Democratic Republic of Congo.
But until General Conference votes on the decision, the Episcopal
Fund budget does not reflect any of these changes, said Sharon Dean,
the spokeswoman for General Council on Finance and Administration.
The full financial impact on the denomination from the proposals to eliminate episcopal areas is uncertain.
However, Dean said that using today’s costs as a measurement, the
estimate over four years for a residential bishop’s office in the
United States is about $1.25 million. Using the same numbers, the
estimated cost for four years for a central conference residential
bishop is about $750,000.
Holding down costs
Bishops have tried to save money in other ways. In the wake of the 2008 economic downturn, the denomination’s U.S. bishops voted in 2009 to forego a raise in 2010 and roll back their pay to 2008 levels, a cut of almost $5,000.
In January 2010, their annual pay dropped from $125,658 to $120,942.
The bishops had hoped to transfer the money trimmed from their
paychecks directly from the Episcopal Fund for ministries such as
the Central Conference Pension Initiative,
a program providing retirement funds for clergy and their spouses in
Africa, Asia and parts of Europe. But because the 2008 General
Conference already had designated that money for the bishops, the
savings had to remain in the Episcopal Fund. It is now part of the
Episcopal Fund reserves.
The bishops’ salaries were restored to the original projected amount in 2011.
All U.S. bishops receive the same salary. The specific salary is determined annually.
According to the General Council on Finance and Administration, the
total projected budget for U.S. bishops’ salaries for 2013-16 is
$28,115,860, based on 49 bishops until the 2012 General Conference
votes on the three episcopal area reductions. The total projected
budget for the central conference bishops for 2013-16 is $5,684,037,
based on 19 bishops until the 2012 General Conference votes on any
additional episcopal areas.
In the next budget period, the bishops also will cut their budget for consultants and continuing education.
“The only way I can see that we could do even less in the Council of
Bishops is by having fewer bishops,” Swenson said. “You’d have bishops
that would have an even larger residential territory than they do
now.”
*Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 newsdesk@umcom.org.
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