Meeting via Zoom Monday, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly joined with the boards for the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation, to approve proposed unified budgets for 2023-24.
After skipping a meeting in April, the Coordinating Table came together with a purpose Thursday, agreeing by consensus to a plan for staff to begin identifying the restrictions on some of the 2,000 restricted funds set up as bequests over many decades and continuing the discussions required for presenting a unified budget, perhaps as soon as the 226th General Assembly in 2024.
The Moving Forward Implementation Special Committee continues to discuss ways to help three of the denomination’s entities — the Office of the General Assembly, the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the A Corporation/Administrative Services Group — develop a unified budget to present to the 225th General Assembly next year.
The Coordinating Table, which has been meeting monthly with the goal of creating a unified budget for the Presbyterian Mission Agency, Office of the General Assembly and Administrative Services Group, took a question-and-answer approach help it reach the goal in time for next year’s General Assembly.
Charged with the job of creating a unified budget for 2023-24 to present to the 225th General Assembly next year, the Coordinating Table heard a proposal for doing just that from Kathy Lueckert, president of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation.
During its third monthly meeting on Thursday, the Coordinating Table divided into three groups to discuss and try to answer four thought-provoking questions designed to clarify what’s important to representatives of the Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation and the boards or committee overseeing each entity.
Just as congregational and mid council giving and budgets are being hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, so will the current and near-term income streams of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, Office of the General Assembly and the Administrative Services Group.
Proposed budgets for the Presbyterian Mission Agency — about $61.2 million in 2021 and about $62.9 million for 2022 — will allow the agency two more years to continue the Matthew 25 focus and to carry out no small number of other worthy ministries, too.
The Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns will propose resolutions to commissioners at the 224th General Assembly in June designed to bring increased awareness and further advance the rights of women.
Meeting in Baltimore, the Moving Forward Implementation Commission voted this week to convene the leadership of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, Office of the General Assembly and the A Corporation for what it called “an honest and open examination” of the 2021-22 budget “in order to establish a unified approach and plan for budgeting for the upcoming cycle.”
