“We have worked very hard on this” and “there’s a lot of sweat and tears involved,” said John Detterick, the council’s executive director. Detterick told the executive committee that he feels sadness about those who are losing their jobs, “but I still feel very good about what you have before you.” And he said the priority setting the council accomplished earlier this year — the creation of a Mission Work Plan — has made “a huge difference to us.”
The General Assembly will meet in Richmond in June and is expected to vote then on the two-year budget for the denomination — a budget of nearly$114.4 million for 2005 and $115 million for 2006.
Some in the denomination have expressed concerns, particularly over cutting jobs in women’s ministries, about reducing resources for educating lay leaders, and about the loss of a Spanish-language curriculum that the PC(USA) has been producing for adults. Executive committee members have received a blast of e-mails on those subjects — some coming from members of the council itself.
“These cuts demonstrate that women’s ministries are not a priority in the structure of the Presbyterian Church where women are more than 50 percent of the membership,” wrote Lea Lawrence, a representative for Presbyterian Women from the Pacific Synod.
“I must confess that I am shocked at the outcome,” wrote council member Hazel Whitney of Virginia in an e-mail, stating that she disagreed with the contention in the budget proposal that the Mission Work Plan placed a stronger emphasis on supporting clergy than on developing the skills of lay leaders. “The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) has always prided itself on parity between elders and pastors, (but) this decision makes one seriously doubt that claim,” Whitney wrote, adding that “most of what I have learned in the PC(USA) was from lay people, both in my own church and my presbytery.”
But the committee also got e-mails expressing the view that, as difficult as these decisions were, the cuts had to be made. Only one committee member voted against the budget plan, Emily Wigger of Illinois, who indicated that she supported much that was in it but was voting “No” because of its impact on women’s ministries and on justice issues.
There was little direct discussion over the plan to cut eight jobs in women’s ministries out in the synods — five associates’ jobs and three support staff, saving the denomination $487,224. Wigger, who said she has worked with women’s groups in the denomination for more than 40 years, said the staff in the synods has been one of the most effective tools of communication in the PC(USA).
Wigger tried unsuccessfully to pass a motion that wouldn’t have affected the bottom line or the job cuts, but would have placed Presbyterian Women and the Women’s Ministries staff in the same place in the denomination’s management structure. She said splitting the placement of those two feels to some like “divide and conquer” — but some others said they wouldn’t support her motion because they viewed it as “micro-management” on the part of the council.
Detterick acknowledged that cutting the synod staff of women’s ministries “has been a severe blow,” but pledged that his staff will do whatever it can to support the work of women’s ministries. And he said that while some people may interpret the executive committee’s vote to approve the budget plan as a lack of support for Presbyterian Women and for women’s ministries, “I do not believe that’s what you meant.”
There also was discussion about another piece of the budget plan — that the PC(USA) stop producing a Spanish-language version of its adult curriculum, and instead work with the United Methodists to offer an ecumenical curriculum.
The PC(USA)’s Spanish-language curriculum for adults is used by about one-third of the Spanish-speaking congregations — about 90 of 300 churches — and has been running a deficit of about $100,000 a year, said Donald Campbell, director of the Congregational Ministries Division.
In an interview, Campbell said he didn’t know what percentage of PC(USA) congregations currently purchase curriculum that the denomination produces for adults in English. Previously, the Covenant People line of curriculum was discontinued because it wasn’t selling well enough — but Campbell also has argued for financial support of the denomination to produce curriculum and has spoken strongly of the need for curriculum produced “by Presbyterians, for Presbyterians.”
Campbell said that in the Spanish-language venture with the United Methodists, “our involvement and input is guaranteed,” and the PC(USA) can “tailor it to our needs,” in part by making sure that Presbyterian writers are involved with the production.
But some in the church disagreed with that approach. Ricardo Moreno, moderator of the Hispanic/Latino Presbyterian Caucus, wrote in an e-mail that he has been involved in ecumenical conversations and supports those efforts. “But I wonder if this will send a double message to our people.” On the one hand the PC(USA) wants to increase the number of racial-ethnic congregations to make the denomination more diverse, Moreo wrote. But on the other hand, this budget cut in essence says “that for our spiritual nurture and educational necessities we should go and ask help from other denominations.”
Campbell and Sandra Moak Sorem of Congregational Ministries Publishing have prepared a letter to send to people who’ve voiced concern about the loss of the Spanish-language curriculum, explaining why it was “a necessary financial decision” and what curriculum will be available through the Methodist partnership.
Some committee members expressed discomfort with the process for cutting the budget — wondering whether council members were informed of the specific proposed cuts quickly enough. But they also acknowledged, as Wigger put it, that “I don’t have a solution” that’s any better.
Vernon Carroll of Montana, chair of the General Assembly Council, started the meeting off by saying he’d heard frustration voiced that some council members felt the budget proposal being presented to them was “essentially a done deal.”
But Carroll assured the executive committee members that if they wanted to make changes, “you have the power to do that.”
Kathy Lueckert, the council’s deputy director, acknowledged that over the last three years a “backwards” process has evolved for cutting the budget — in part because of a desire to show care and concern for the employees losing their jobs. Details of the budget cuts weren’t divulged earlier to the council members, to make sure they heard directly that their jobs were being cut, not through rumor or from a news story, Lueckert said.
“It ain’t perfect, we know that,” she said. “But without some strokes of divine guidance we haven’t been able to figure out how to make it any better.”
And it was helpful, she said, that this time around the budget cuts were based on a set of priorities the full council agreed on in February, called the Mission Work Plan.
That set of priorities “gave us a firmer set of directions than anything we’ve had before,” Lueckert said. “We’ve been guessing the last two years,” during the two previous rounds of budget cuts, when the denomination cut more than $7 million more from the budget, eliminating 85 jobs. “This year we had some firm guidance,” she said.
But the council’s leadership also warned that, if anything was added back into the budget, something else would have to be cut. And “I would remind you that there are no easy cuts,” Detterick said.
Each of the program divisions faced distinct challenges in finding ways to cut the budget. For example, 45 percent of the $21.2 million budget of the National Ministries Division comes from unrestricted funds, and of that, just over half of the expenses go for salaries. So when National Ministries had to find more than $1.1 million to cut, “there was little room to maneuver” and it was obvious some jobs would be lost, said division director Curtis Kearns. The plan calls for National Ministries to lose 13 positions.
In Worldwide Ministries, by contrast, only about 10 percent of the budget is funded through unrestricted funds — which posed a different kind of challenge, said division director Marian McClure. To find ways to cut there, Worldwide looked for ways to legitimately shift some restricted funds to pay for things now being paid for with unrestricted dollars.
Worldwide did not lose any staff positions, but it does plan to reduce grants, primarily to international church partners.
“Some of the grant-making has a very powerful supportive effect around the world,” McClure said. “It’s a hard thing to give up.” But that’s part of her division’s emphasis on decentralizing its work, in part to respond to the boom in international mission work being done at the grassroots level. Cutting grants can save the jobs of mission co-workers, McClure said, and those people — particularly the regional liaisons — play increasingly important roles in working with grassroots mission networks, people from the congregational and presbytery level who have an interest in particular areas — for example, working in Sudan. To lose any mission co-worker “is to hit the delete button” on an entire network of involvement, McClure said. 
