We'll all wait patiently to see some evidence that is was officially described as a 'promotion budget'.
It was mentioned (was it the Chairman running his mouth at a supporters event?) that the budget was up. It seems you, like many others, read too much into that thinking it was suddenly super competitive when in fact our increased budget could still have left us further behind other teams in the division who were actually chucking money about. Ayr nicked our best player because they could double his wages ffs and we couldn't compete.
As for 'budgeting for a manageable loss' - you've misinterpreted that one also. Budgets aren't set in November (when the video you are paraphrasing was released), they are set months before that.
We budgeted to exit both cups at the first stage, like we always do. We budgeted for 8th place, like we always do. We budgeted for break even.
The assessment of how we were doing towards that come November was that it looks like we will fall short of break even due to several factors such as medical costs remaining high, National Insurance increases coming in later in the year and other unexpected costs but they are working to mitigate the loss as much as they can and keep it 'manageable'.