But the revised 2010 budget the General Assembly Mission Council approved Sept. 24 is $5.76 million less than the budget for 2009, coming in at just over $101 million. Income for the church is down from many sources, and accumulated reserves are being spent down — all signs there could be more trouble not far ahead.
Joey Bailey, the PC(USA)’s chief financial officer, said the budgets for 2011 and 2012, which the General Assembly Mission Council will consider in May 2010, “will take serious, hard work.” And Bailey is warning that the PC(USA) needs to begin spending at the level of current receipts coming in, rather than relying on reserves or endowments to make up the difference between income and expenses.
For the proposed 2010 budget, the gap between those figures — the money coming in and the money going out — was about $14.5 million. In other words, this proposed $101 million budget was balanced using $14.5 million in accumulated reserves from endowment income and from other sources, along with $86.6 million in new revenue, a pattern that Bailey says cannot continue much longer.
Bailey cautioned that some mission areas are being funded through revenue sources that will be coming to an end. For example, the Interfaith Relations office is operating with more than $122,000 in revenue from endowment funds for 2010, but needs to find alternate funding for future years, a budget document states. That’s true for some other program areas as well.
Overall, receipts are down in a number of areas from 2009 to 2010 — including about $300,000 in unrestricted basic mission support. Restricted receipts are down more than $7 million.
The pattern of downward giving also can be seen when the budget for 2009 is compared to actual receipts received through Aug. 31, 2009. Shared mission support (unrestricted giving from congregations and middle governing bodies) was down $546,000 and directed mission support (designated giving by those bodies) by $429,000.
Total special offerings were down more than $1.4 million — including a drop of $456,000 in the Christmas Joy Offering, and a decline of more than $693,000 in the One Great Hour of Sharing offering.
And emergency and disaster relief giving dropped by more than $1.1 million.
While the denomination is running behind on collections so far for this year, “it’s too early to tell what that will mean for year end,” Bailey told the council Sept. 24. “But it’s certainly a trend we will have to watch really closely.”
At its meeting in Louisville this week, the council is considering a revised 2010 budget — a budget that’s been balanced in part by making cuts in expenses.
For example, the denomination’s travel budget was cut by 15 percent (more than $318,000) and the postage budget by 10 percent (more than $27,000). Some of the savings are the results of staff reductions made in 2009 — for example, eight positions eliminated in Information Technology. And no overall salary increases are being granted in 2010, producing a savings of nearly $850,000.
“We’re really holding our expenditures down,” Bailey told the council’s Executive Committee. “Just because it’s budgeted doesn’t mean you have to spend it. This isn’t the government; it isn’t `use it or lose it.’ ”
The budget also makes use of $2.2 million from the Presbyterian Mission Program Fund, the denomination’s required reserves. Before these budget adjustments, $2 million from PMPF reserves was already in the 2010 budget, so this proposal adds another $215,000. That still would the PC(USA) with more than $12 million in reserves – more than $4 million above the minimum requirement of $8.4 million.
Restricted spending for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance will drop by $5.6 million in 2010. But that’s a planned spend-down, Bailey said, of money Presbyterians gave to support Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
Sara Lisherness, director of Compassion, Peace, and Justice ministries for the PC(USA), told the council that Presbyterians gave $24 million for Katrina relief, which is being allocated over five years, as part of the denomination’s commitment to be involved in long-term relief along the Gulf Coast. By the end of 2011, all the money will be spent, Lisherness said.
Less than $300,000 has been given for Hurricane Ike relief — even though Presbyterians in Texas and Louisiana have been pleading for more volunteers and more money to assist those trying to rebuild after the destructive September 2008 storm.
Bailey said the budget indicates the need for the PC(USA) to find donors willing to create new endowments.
“Send the word out,” he told the council. Most of the PC(USA)’s endowments were given by the World War II generation. “We’ve been living with these funds,” Bailey said, “and they’ll be running out.”
