MDG’s Get The Axe But Litigation Expense Survives TEC Budget

Litigation is more important than MDGs. The Episcopal Fraud has cut MDGS out of the budget. Schori and Company do not believe in evangelism, and now they have shown that suing churches is more important than their social gospel. They can't afford to allocate less than 1% of the budget to MDGs, but they can afford a hefty line item for litigation. Jesus must be proud. There must be a special place in hell for these people. ed.

from Stand Firm by Jackie Bruchi

The Episcopal Church developed a draft budget that assumes income from diocese will increase in 2010, increases the draw from endowment and cuts the MDG line item. True to form, the money for litigation survived the cut.

The draft budget calls for increasing the draw on endowment income from 5 percent to 5.5 percent, deferring debt repayment, freezing church center salaries in 2010, cutting most non-personnel church center costs by 9 percent and slightly reducing personnel costs.

Episcopal Church Treasurer Kurt Barnes told the council January 30 that the world economy has not been in this sort of financial crisis "since the time of the Depression," and thus the council "must take very, very serious action. We are not forgetting the concept of abundance, but we also cannot forget the concept of being good stewards for all those who come after us."

Those actions involved hard choices, according to Barnes and council members. Even increasing the draw on the endowment from 5 percent to 5.5 percent would mean that income line would still be down by about $7 million from the last triennium, Barnes said.

Deferring debt repayment, which primarily involves the cost of the recent remodeling of the Church Center in New York City saves $2.1 million, Executive Council Administration and Finance Committee chair Josephine Hicks told the council, adding that "it pains everyone on A&F to do that."

Another cost-saving measure, the elimination of the budget's line item of 0.7 percent spending for specific Millennium Development Goals spending, drew comment even as it was approved. Advocates of the MDG movement (eight goals for social progress set by the United Nations) have urged countries and organizations to devote 0.7 percent of their spending to programs aimed at achieving the goals. That line item in the last budget amounted to about $924,000.