To be honest, I wouldn’t accept £35M from them for Tarkowski, never mind Branthwaite
Even Daniel Levy wouldn't start negotiations with an offer that derisory. That has the PR look of, "Well, we wanted to spend, but Everton was unreasonable."
A quick glance at their financials shows total employee spending and amortization of 500 million pounds against revenue of 650 million last year. The employee spending isn't bracketed into players vs. staff, but it seems probable they're bumping up against the new 70% of revenue ceiling next year, and that player wages as reported in the media are low. If not, they're spending over a third of their wage costs on non-playing staff, which is a lot.
I suspect they've finally hit the financial wall, thus proving they're just as vulnerable as us to mismanaging the roster. If anything, it's a more difficult situation, because their big mistakes are even harder to recover something from.