That isn't what I said. I'll try again with more numbers.
The O's draft pool was $13,894,300.
The O's International pool was $5,899,600.
What I am positing is that ownership told Elias he had a budget of *hypothetically* 17.5 Million out of the total allotment of $19,793,900.
Elias chose to cut 200K from the draft and ~2M from the International pool.
Now I'm obviously making up the International numbers since I haven't seen a total spent.
It is also possible that other spending falls under this umbrella, maybe he's just given a total budget for everything and he has the choice to make decisions on what gets spent where.
The overall idea is the same, that the budget given to him by ownership does not allow him to spend fully in these areas. I think it unlikely that Elias would chose to not spend money on the draft or International players.