LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board voted to adjust the 2013 and 2014 operating budgets of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in part in response to new spending approved by the 2012 General Assembly.
The board approved a $2.5 million budget increase for 2013, bringing the budget to just over $84.1 million, and a $2.3 million hike for 2014, bringing the 2014 budget up to $80.5 million.
The additional money will be used in a variety of ways, as follows:
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An extra $1.9 million will go each year to World Mission;
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Close to $1 million ($523,000 in 2013 and $423,000 in 2014) will go for initiatives authorized by the 2012 General Assembly;
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A leadership development program in the Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries office will cost $140,000 a year;
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The UKIRK program, the network of collegiate ministries of the PC(USA), will get $47,500 each year;
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Some of the money will help make up for a projected shortfall in the unrestricted income the PC(USA) will receive in 2013 and 2014.
The money to pay for those new budget increases will come in these ways:
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From two large gifts to the PC(USA) given last May – each a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor, one for international mission work and one for work inside the United States;
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From denominational reserves – $266,000 in 2013 and $247,000 for 2014, to cover costs for the Committee on Theological Education.
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From cutting the spending in some ministry program areas;
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From restricted sources of income.
The board also voted to cease giving money from the Christmas Joy Offering to Barber Scotia College, a small, predominantly African-American, Presbyterian-related school in North Carolina whose history dates from the 1860s. Molly Baskin, a board member who’s been involved in examining the college’s financial difficulties, said Barber Scotia lost its accreditation in 2004 and no longer meets the criteria the 2008 General Assembly imposed for recipients of Christmas Joy funding.
“It is not a financially stable or succeeding school,” Baskin told the board. She said the school currently has only 52 students and three faculty members, has gone without property or casualty insurance for the last year and has sizeable liens on its property.
“Unless they have manna dropping in their laps to the tune of several million, they likely will have no recourse but to shut down the school,” Baskin said.
