The 2027 Conference budget is an increase from the 2026 budget of 8.67%, or almost $980,000. A little over $451,000 of this increase comes from an increase in our share of the general agency’s budgets through General Church apportionments. We should note that the 2020/2024 General Conference, held in May 2024 in Charlotte, adopted a drastically reduced general budget from $604 million to $347 million, similar to what was proposed to the postponed 2020 General Conference.

In our NC conference budget approved in 2020, General Church apportionments were based on the original, reduced General Church apportionments. Seeing an increase this year in General Church apportionments following the 2020/2024 General Conference is a result of our continuing with a reduced budget in 2020, even after General Conference was postponed and was unable to officially adopt the reduced budget at that time.

Even though the General Conference budget was reduced in Charlotte, we had, in effect, already taken our General Church apportionment decrease in 2020, and this increase brings us up to the level that would reflect inflation and other adjustments since 2020.