The executive body of the Episcopal Church says an effort to save money by scheduling shorter meetings has led to a greater chance for marking errors as it cited mistakes in the church's 3-year, $104.9 million budget.

The errors specifically cited in a memo released Friday at the conclusion of the group's meeting occurred in categories linked to ministries for various age groups, church internships and development. Discrepancies include amounts of $250,592, $200,000, and $1.2 million, respectively.

The 48-member Executive Council, chaired by The Most Rev. Katharine Jeffers Schori, is an elected body representing the whole Church and meets nine times over each three year period. A meeting in February when the budget was presented came just ahead of the end of the "triennium." The Council is seeking to make corrections, within existing rules, ahead of the Church's general convention set to take place starting on July 5.

During a plenary discussion, the Episcopal Church's Executive Council members said they realized that while "we attempted to save money by having shorter Council meetings, the amount of work remained the same or expanded. The result has been longer days with tired and stressed Council members and staff, resulting in a greater chance of errors occurring."

The Council issued a memo on Friday pointing out errors in a draft budget which it sent in February to the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance, also known as PB&F.

The Council expressed "extreme disappointment with the budget that was sent to PB&F…the budget sent to PB&F is not the budget Council approved."

Among the potential explanations the Council gave were scheduling the a PB&F meeting one day after the February Council meeting, "necessitating agreement by the Executive Council to a final document before the Treasurer's Office had adequate time to draft the document for final review by the Executive Council."

Specifics concerns include:

One line in the budget allotted $537,030 for "Staff Costs" under Formation and Vocation, while another line titled Total Formation and Vocation" read $286,438. A church blog for "Formation and Vocation Ministries" lists ministries in geared toward people in age groups such as children, young adults, adults and older adults.

The Council also said council's decision to allot The Episcopal Service Corps $200,000 "is currently subsumed" under a line of the budget entitled "Mission Personnel." The Council says the Corps is an organization which supports young adult internship programs throughout the church. The Council said in the memo intention its intention is to shift funding every three years to different "emerging networks" that are not a part of two other church organizations.

Proposed income for the Development Office is $3.7 million but the amount proposed as expenditure is $2.5 million.

"If the two numbers are brought into alignment, either by decreasing income or increasing expense, then the budget will be unbalanced by about $1.2 million," the Executive Council said.