The diocese’s newly reorganized Budget Committee begins work next month, charged with crafting a 2025 budget that will align with Bishop White’s emerging vision for the diocese’s mission and ministry. For Brad Sturm, appointed by Bishop White to chair the committee, the job is larger than simply making the spreadsheet balance.
“One thing we want to be sure we do is increase the connectivity between the dioceses and the members of the congregations,” Sturm said. “We want to help the congregations move together versus having a loose confederations of planets.”
A seasoned lay leader at Trinity, Columbus, Sturm retired in 2021 as portfolio manager for real estate at the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System. Having served two terms on the parish’s vestry, each of which included stints as junior and senior warden, he understands the importance of paying attention to the ways that the diocese collects money from congregations.
Earlier this month, Bishop White announced that the year-end 2023 financial statements had revealed a $450,000 surplus in the diocese’s convention budget, which is funded primarily by congregational mission share payments. That surplus will be credited to congregations in the same proportion as the 2023 mission share assessments were calculated.
“We’ll make sure everything balances out before it goes to Council,” he said, noting that the committee is especially attuned to making accurate projections of revenue needed from congregations, because “that’s where a lot of mission and ministry is done.”
“The goal of the diocese is to support the ministry of congregations, and both the income and expense sides of our budgets must reflect that core purpose,” Bishop White said. “I am grateful to Brad and this year’s budget committee for taking on the challenge of creating a budget that aligns with our call to serve God across Southern Ohio.”
Developing the expense side of the budget will depend not only on requests from ministry leaders who oversee programs and administrative functions funded by the budget, but also by the results of the recently concluded discernment gatherings conducted by Ministry Architects. The consultants will deliver their report in a public Zoom session on May 29 at 10 a.m.
“We want to make sure that we’re funding things we should be funding,” Sturm said.
Ministry leaders responsible for particular areas of the diocese’s convention budget will receive forms to request 2025 budget allocations on June 1. On the same date, leaders with programs or initiatives that do not currently receive budget funds will be able to fill out a questionnaire describing their ministry and requesting support for 2025.
New budget requests will be due to the budget committee by June 17, while returning budgets are due June 30. Sturm emphasizes that Budget Committee members are eager to help leaders craft budget requests, and says that he and the committee plan to take a fresh look even at longstanding line items.
“We’re trying to be very open and transparent about how we put our budgets together,” he said. “We might be doing things because that’s the way we’ve always done them.”
Once it receives budget requests, Sturm says the committee will spend the balance of the summer and early fall developing a draft of the 2025 convention budget “that allows us to do the work that God has given us to do.
The Budget Committee will present its proposed convention budget to Diocesan Council in time for approval before the diocese’s annual convention on November 22 and 23.
“After that is done, we sing the Doxology and call it a day,” Sturm said.
