PCUSA plans to cut workers to avoid $5.3-million deficit
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, April 23, 2002
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has scaled back its publications, stopped the press on a major curriculum, initiated a hiring freeze and cut travel – and still is facing a $5.3-million deficit in its 2003 Mission Program.
To plug $4 million of that gap, staff leaders at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, the denomination’s headquarters, have called for a 12-percent reduction in the workforce (66 of the 555 jobs) and other budget changes. The rest of the deficit – $1.3 million – would be covered by using reserve funds.
In addition to the Louisville jobs, the recommendations call for reducing the number of full-time missionaries by 11 percent, from 334 to 300, and decreasing some missionary support services. The proposed reductions in missionaries – through attrition, not dismissal – and missionary support services tally up to $1.5 million in savings, 37.5 percent of the $4 million.
The Executive Committee of the General Assembly Council will review the staff’s recommendations during a meeting in Louisville April 26-27.
Controversial programs not cut
What has not been cut significantly are some of the controversial programs that may be the reason the PCUSA is shrinking in membership and income.
For instance, the denomination’s Washington Office, which has been a lobby for leftist causes, lost only $25,000 for an intern – for a job that was already vacant.
No reduction was suggested for the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, a feminist campus group that was nearly dismantled because of its publication favoring homosexual activity and aberrant theology.
The National Ministries Division proposed eliminating a $45,000 grant to the National Council of Churches’ National Ministries Unit, but there was no reason to have that money in the budget anyway. The NCC, facing its own financial crisis, had already halted most of the work of the National Ministries Unit last year.
Reasons for shortfall
A number of factors led to the need to cut mission funding, which totaled $144.4 million in 2001 and is projected at $130.1 million in 2003:
- Unrest in the denomination.
- Investment setbacks in 2001 from which the stock market has not recovered. The Presbyterian Foundation has guaranteed $11 million from investment funds for the 2003 budget, down from $12.3 million in 2002.
- A projected membership decline of 45,000 in 2001, which would be the largest one-year loss since 1982. (The 1982 loss was 1.4 percent of the membership; the 2001 loss, if it reaches 45,000, will be 1.8 percent of membership.)
- A declining pool of unrestricted money for Presbyterian missions as more contributors are designating their gifts. Designated gifts now account for 76 percent of the contributions to the denomination, leaving less latitude for shuffling money into programs that are unpopular. From 2001 to 2003, unrestricted mission money has declined from $41 million to $37 million.
11 percent reduction in missionaries
The mission budget proposals require belt-tightening throughout the denomination’s agencies, but the largest cuts are in the Worldwide Ministries Division.
Based on past support of the National Council of Churches and the Washington Office, eliminating those programs would have more than paid for the $1.5 million needed to maintain foreign missions at the current level.
Besides full-time missionaries, Worldwide Ministries plans to eliminate 18 jobs – mostly in administrative support or recruitment for missions.
Other division cuts
The proposed Congregational Ministries Division budget would eliminate 18 jobs; National Ministries would eliminate 13; the office of the executive director of the General Assembly Council would eliminate six; and Mission Support Services would eliminate seven.
Of the 66 jobs to be eliminated, 21 are currently vacant, meaning 43 employees face “involuntary separation,” according to a summary of the proposed budget changes by John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council.
The proposed budget does include some new expenses, including $1 million to begin a fundraising campaign with a goal of $20 million – principally to make up for declining support for the Worldwide Ministries Division and new church development, with an emphasis on racial-ethnic congregations. The new spending proposal also provides money to increase pay for workers whose jobs are not eliminated.
Job holders not identified
Including Detterick’s executive summary, the 21-page “Proposed 2003 Mission Budget” outlines cutbacks without specifically identifying people who are holding the jobs that will be eliminated.
The savings in Detterick’s office, Worldwide Ministries, National Ministries and Congregational Ministries include eliminating jobs (41 percent), “administrative efficiencies” (26 percent); reorganization of work (18 percent) and “strategic reductions” (15 percent).
The mission budget is separate from the General Assembly’s per capita budget, which pays for the General Assembly, the General Assembly Council and the Office of the General Assembly.
The outline for the budget cuts is published in a portable document format that requires an Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be downloaded without cost.