Today deputies will take up and consider a sweeping package of reforms to the Church’s
budgeting process with resolution A048. While the Executive Council is tasked with the
implementation of the budget in the triennium between conventions, the Joint Standing
Committee on Program, Budget and Finance (P,B&F) is the General Convention committee that
pieces together and proposes the budget for adoption.
Through a series of hearings and in consultation with the Presiding Officers in both houses, the
Committee on P,B &F, made up of 27 Bishops and Deputies from a variety of provinces and
diocese, construct the budget and casts a vision for the church in the next triennium. The
budget, once approved by the committee, is presented to a Joint Session of the House of
Deputies and the House of Bishops. It is later voted on and adopted in later legislative sessions.
A048 fundamentally changes the budgeting process by keeping the Executive Council as the
custodian and shepherd of the budget and gives them the authority to continue as the agent
who hears the programmatic and funding requests throughout the budget formation process
and ultimately the arbiter of the budget.
This is a welcome change to the budgetary process as it streamlines the process and keeps the
finance committee, who are budget experts, in the driver’s seat in making sure the church’s
priorities are met. Additionally, this will allow more time and careful consideration to be given
to resolutions with budgetary implications keeping those resolutions from being unfunded
mandates.
The budget process is arduous, but proposals like this make light work for the General
Convention and give more voice to parts of the budget that are making the biggest impacts in
the church and in the world.
The Episcopal Herald 