The number of international mission workers also would be reduced by 34 as people retire or leave for other reasons, although Marian McClure, director of the PC(USA)’s Worldwide Ministries Division, has said she hopes some of those positions can be restored later if new funding is found.
While acknowledging that the cuts will be difficult for the employees at the church’s Louisville headquarters who will lose their jobs — 43 employees will be laid off almost immediately, two will lose their jobs later this year and 21 of the positions cut are vacant — those who presented the plan spoke of it as a valuable opportunity to reassess how the church does its work, what’s most important to it and how it can be more efficient.
John Detterick, the General Assembly Council’s executive director, led the staff leadership team that worked for weeks to come up with the plan for cutting the budget — cuts that the council acknowledged carved into the muscle of the denomination’s work, not just the fat. Detterick said he regretted that the cuts had to be made, but said “it’s been a fabulous learning experience” in analyzing the church’s work and how it can be done better.
“We were forced to do the kind of analysis we did,” and in some cases made changes that should have been made earlier, Detterick said. “But there are huge sacrifices.”
Detterick and his staff stressed that they had worked hard to come up with a process that would be compassionate and fair — what committee member Kay Hirt Eggleston of Carmel, Ind., described as “absolutely the most humane system” of cutting jobs that she’s ever encountered.
“You have no idea what’s out there in the real world,” Eggleston said, adding that she once was given a glowing performance review in a job and then — as a single mother of four — terminated, effective immediately, and told to clean out her desk. “If you think it’s hard here,” she said, “a lot of people in the outside world have a lot less notice and a lot less safety net underneath them” than what the church is providing.
Before voting to make the cuts, the executive committee prayed, some with their hands covering their faces. “The names we have seen (of people losing their jobs) represent many years of faithful service to you, to your church,” prayed Emily Wigger of Alton, Ill. “We ask that you reach out to them with a mother’s tender care . . . Heal their wounds.”
Although there was not intense discussion at this meeting of what was being cut and why, some committee members said they had asked their questions of the staff in advance, through phone calls and e-mails. The only member to vote against the plan, Adelia Kelso of Pearl River, La., the committee’s vice-chair, said in an interview that she didn’t oppose the specifics of the budget cuts, but remains hopeful that the stock market can rebound and the church’s financial picture will improve.
“The cuts that they made were wise ones,” Kelso said. “The rationale they had was wise. They way they went about it was very, very well done.”
But Kelso added that “I can truthfully say I am hopeful” that the market will bounce back.
The 2003 budget, which still must be approved by the General Assembly in June, now totals more than $130.1 million, including $36.9 in unrestricted income and $93.1 million in restricted income
In presenting the plan, Detterick and his staff emphasized both their reluctance to lay off valued people — (“We wish there were another way,” Detterick said. “There isn’t another way”) — and a desire to emphasize not just what’s being eliminated, but also what programs are being kept and perhaps being strengthened.
The Worldwide Ministries Division, for example, will reduce the number of its area coordinators — people who are responsible for overseeing mission work in particular parts of the world — from 8 to 6, but also will shift some of what McClure said has been “an unrealistic workload” for them to a better-coordinated support team, and will try to strengthen the relationships with congregations or middle governing bodies that also are involved in working overseas.
Detterick also talked about changing priorities and the reality that some of the budget cuts are necessary in order to fund new projects.
A few months ago, the PC(USA)’s financial team was projecting a $3.17 million shortfall — related partly to declines in the investment markets and to a decrease in revenue from wills and bequests.
But, at Detterick’s urging, the council voted in February to approve $2.4 million in new initiatives — all of which had to be paid for, and which increased the amount that had to be cut from the 2003 budget to more than $5 million. To do that, the executive committee voted to take $610,000 from the capital reserve, $720,000 from the Presbyterian Mission Program Fund cash reserves, and to cut $4 million in staff and programs.
The new initiatives, part of the changing priorities for the denomination that Detterick talked about, included providing $500,000 in additional expenses for the new “We Believe” curriculum (an effort to provide a Presbyterian-produced curriculum for Presbyterian churches) and $1 million in funding for the first year of the Mission Initiative (a new fund raising drive for which the council has given provisional approval and which is intended to raise $40 million over the next five years for international mission work and church growth, particularly among racial-ethnic groups).
The council also voted in February to set aside nearly $900,000 for employee salary raises (roughly a 4 percent increase — although some employees would get less and the remainder would be used for merit increases). But, as it came time to actually make the budget cuts, that amount was reduced by $220,000 — making it roughly a 3 percent salary increase — in order to salvage some programs and jobs that otherwise might have been cut.
Despite the strong show of support for Detterick’s plan and the effort to emphasize what can be done better, not just what’s being lost, there were hints in the discussion of the kinds of concerns and challenges that still lie ahead.
Detterick said he’s been asked several times, “Is this it? Does this mean no more cut s for the next decade . . . I’ve had to say to them, `We don’t know yet,’ ” and that the budget forecast for 2004 and 2005 still isn’t clear.
Some have raised what Detterick’s staff described as a “real concern that work has not actually gone away, ” but that those who are left will just be expected to do more.
Behind the scenes, some have grieved about the impact on particular people who lost their jobs — of those let go, two had worked for the church 40 years or more, two others for more than 30 years, four for more than 20 years. Some were nearing retirement. Those losing their jobs will be required to leave their offices by May 3.
And it will take time for the impact of these changes to shake out. In the National Ministries Division, for example, cuts were made to consolidate the offices of rural ministry and small churches into a new Office of Network Support.
Curtis Kearns Jr., National Ministries director, said the PC(USA) recognizes that some of the most creative and innovative work in those areas is being done through grassroots networks rather than a top-down approach from the denomination, and Detterick said in an interview that he sees no erosion of the denomination’s commitment to small or rural churches. But some council members acknowledged that this is a touchy area — that they’re receiving questions from people who wonder how the new arrangement will work.
McClure said her office sent letters several weeks ago to partner churches — the PC(USA) has 165 partner churches in 80 countries — warning them of the budget difficulties and that they might receive less in grant money next year. “Some of them count on annual assistance from us,” she said. But some sent what she described as very gracious and pastoral letters back, talking about “the sharing of all of our talents and resources, not just money.”
It is also not clear, as Detterick said, what the financial out look is for the next several years.
Although there are fewer Presbyterians — the denomination continues to lose thousands each year — “the fewer people are giving almost as much as people were giving before,” said Joey Bailey of Mission Support Services. Overall, shared mission giving has been holding steady.
But there are other factors that Detterick’s team cannot control. Earnings on investments take a hit when the stock market suffers. And the PC(USA) still is negotiating with the Presbyterian Foundation to determine what the spending formula will be after 2003 for the foundation to provide money to the PC(USA) from its endowment funds.
Bailey said he’s optimistic. But until more is known about that, he said, “it’s really hard to say” what the budgets will look like through 2005
