Board of Pensions forms
committee on same-sex benefits
By Carmen Fowler, The Layman, Posted Friday, October 22, 2010
FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Board of Pensions (BOP) has formed a special committee to consider the 219th General Assembly’s action urging it to extend benefits to same-gender domestic partners of plan members.
The committee will include Frank James III, chair; Anne Drennan, John Huffman, Claude Lilly III, Christopher Mason, Carol Sheffey Parham, Nancy Rhodes, Laird Stuart and Paul Volker.
According to the 2011 business plan the committee will “explore and examine the polity, communications, financial and administrative issues associated with the overture approved by the General Assembly, communicate with the church at large, both as to the disparate views as well as our progress in considering the issues presented.”
The committee is charged to:
- Study the request of the GA in depth;
- Determine the effects of any level of implementation of the request; PLC’s urgent call to action:
Send a message to BOP today
PLC issues statement to BOP
Presbyterians react to proposal - Consider the consequences on plan members and employing organizations;
- Consider the “advantages and disadvantages of creating more inclusive benefit levels for plan members who are not ordained;”
- Consider the impact on the reputation and integrity of the BOP; and
- With the allowance to address other concerns as they emerge.
The committee will periodically report the status of its work to the full board and ultimately make recommendations of an appropriate response to the GA’s request.
In an e-mail response to a PCUSA elder inquiring about the process, a BOP staff member disclosed that “the committee will report back to the board in their summer meeting of 2011 and the full board will make the decision at their fall meeting of 2011. There is no dues increase for 2011 and the earliest that the board would increase dues would be 2012.”
In his comments to the board, President Robert Maggs identified five notable areas of attention in the last decade, all of which persist today:
- Declining church membership and revenues
- Increasingly costly medical plan
- Volatile financial markets
- Building a great staff, and a
- Growing compliance burden
Maggs noted that the BOP has aspired to continuous improvement in response to each. He then turned his attention to five emerging realities for 2010.
First, the PCUSA is experiencing a generational change in church leadership resulting in decisions being made by people whose perspectives were cultivated in the ‘80s and ‘90s, not the ‘50s and ‘60s. Maggs noted that everything related to “traditional polity” is now on the table.
Second, Maggs spoke to the issue of increasing money management risks. He talked about the risks associated with global interdependence like currency wars and regional wars likely to result from inflation on the horizon throughout the world.
The final three concerns are the growing complexity of the plan due to ever-increasing government regulations, disputes over money and the legal status of “church” benefits plans.
Maggs noted that as “new mazes” are created for plan members as the demand for member services grows and that both the community-based nature of the plan and the uniformity of benefits may be challenged.
Maggs offered two further sobering observations challenging the board to “keep a close eye on reserves” and that there is “little likelihood of finding additional billions from shrinking membership.”
In the face of all this, Maggs noted the importance of “transparency above all” and the need for the BOP to maintain strict independence. He challenged the board to “stay out of disputes that are properly the province of others.”
The BOP is governed by an independent 33 member board of directors nominated by the General Assembly Nominating Committee and elected by the GA. It reports to each assembly regarding the work completed on its behalf, providing thorough and transparent financial information not only to the GA but to members of the benefits plan, employing organizations and other constituents.