The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) faces its own financial difficulties — already significant, and now likely made worse by the current economic climate.
And, at the General Assembly Council meeting in Utah Sept. 30-Oct. 3, there were hints that there could be even more difficult days ahead.
Reserves. The current budget, for 2009-2010, was balanced in part by using about $7 million from the denomination’s reserves. That budget calls for drawing $3.5 million from reserves both in 2009 and again in 2010.
When the budget was presented last February, the PC(USA) had a balance in the Presbyterian Mission Program Fund (PMPF) reserves of just over $21.2 million, with a required reserve balance of just over $9.5 million. Once the $7 million was spent, the PC(USA) would have left a “projected cushion” of $8.3 million above that required cushion at the end of 2009 (making for a reserve balance of about $17.8 million) and $4.8 million at the end of 2010 (making a reserve balance of about $14.3 million), the report presented then stated.
Since then, the picture has changed.
As of the end of August 2008, the reserve balance had already dipped to $14.2 million. Part of that drop is due to a decrease in the market value of investments of more than $1.6 million, according to a report to the council’s Stewardship Committee.
“We spent some of the reserves thinking we had more available,” said Joey Bailey, the PC(USA)’s deputy executive director for shared services. “With this market decline, we don’t have as much left over” as previously expected.
And there are indications the budget for 2011 and 2012 will be tight. Bailey told the council’s Executive Committee that “it will be a challenge.” With lower reserves from which to draw, “you can read the tea leaves,” Bailey said.
There have been some sources of encouragement. While the General Assembly ordered more work to be done, which naturally carries additional costs, Bailey has had success in renting out some unused space on the first floor of the denomination’s headquarters building in Louisville. The rentals helped to cover much of that new expense.
But with the downturn in the stock market, “we need to be very concerned” and “we need to be very frugal,” Bailey told the Executive Committee. “Just because it’s approved (in the budget) doesn’t mean we have to spend every dollar,” and some savings may be achieved by not filling all vacant staff positions.
Curriculum. One area that already faces a shortfall is Congregational Ministries Publishing. Already this year, the publishing division, which produces curriculum for the PC(USA) and also sells to an ecumenical audience, faces a shortfall of $635,000. That figure is likely to rise to at least $700,000 by the end of this year, Bailey said.
There are a number of reasons why.
First, many Presbyterian congregations do not order curriculum through the PC(USA), said Mark Hinds, general editor of Congregational Ministries Publishing.
Research found that “many of them felt guilty that they didn’t, but they didn’t,” Hinds said. Some thought the material looked too dated; some said they couldn’t afford it. A survey found “very different reasons for those who don’t use it” – a range of reasons Hinds said.
Second, the publishing entity has in the warehouse substantial obsolete inventory that “we need to write off,” said Steve Moore, executive editor for Congregational Ministries Publishing. Depending on the size of the write-offs, that could push the deficit even higher, Moore said.
And third, one of the biggest revenue producers for Congregational Ministries Publishing has been the Bible Quest curriculum line, produced with an ecumenical group of partners. In 2005, that partnership group decided to phase out the Bible Quest curriculum by the summer of 2008. Some of those partners began working immediately to figure out what they’d replace Bible Quest with, Moore said.
But in the PC(USA), “there wasn’t a plan in place for what was going to seamlessly replace Bible Quest,” Moore said. A previous management team in curriculum publishing “dropped the ball. … There should have been a plan in place. When you’re talking about something that is a major revenue winner, there really should have been something in place.”
Some Stewardship Committee members asked what the new marketing plan is — and seemed less than impressed by the clarity of the answer. There also was discussion about to what extent Congregational Ministries Publishing should be self-sufficient, and how much it should be viewed as a ministry of the denomination supported by mission budget dollars.
In some ways, “their goal is to make this as independent as possible from the General Assembly Council having to pay for it, frankly,” said Tom Taylor, deputy executive director for mission. But there also is a desire to have the PC(USA) publish its own curriculum, which includes “Wee Believe,” a new resource that’s being developed for preschoolers, and a new curriculum that will be released in the spring of 2009 called “FILM” – short for “Faith in Literature and Media.”
The council’s Discipleship Committee met jointly for a time on Oct. 1 to discuss the issue. Tom Gillespie, the former president of Princeton Theological Seminary and the teacher of a second-grade Sunday School class at Nassau Church in New Jersey, is chair of that committee.
Without strategic thinking and discipleship tools such as curriculum, “there’s not going to be any stewardship, there’s not going to be any mission,” Gillespie said. He added: “There’s more to governance than balancing a budget. We need to be about our Father’s business in a very serious way here.”
The council voted Oct. 3 to ask that a more detailed marketing plan for Congregational Ministries Publishing be presented before the council’s meeting in March 2009.
