The Moving Forward Implementation Commission has approved the recommendations it will send to the 2020 General Assembly – work the commission hopes will lead to greater collaboration at the top levels of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and that calls for a unified budget without structural realignment.
The 2018 General Assembly created the 12-person commission when it adopted the recommendations of the Way Forward Commission, giving the new commission the authority to take “any and all administrative actions as necessary” to implement the Way Forward Commission recommendations.
The Moving Forward commission approved nine recommendations during conference calls Feb. 18 and 20. The commission has another call scheduled for Feb. 21 – the deadline day for submitting the report – to tweak the final language, but has already voted to approve the nine recommendations. Here’s more on those decisions.
Recommendation: Mission Engagement and Support. The commission is recommending moving the Mission Engagement and Support office – which is responsible for trying to increase mission giving in the PC(USA) – from the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) to the Administrative Services Group (ASG), which is part of the PC(USA), A Corporation. The recommendation also states that:
- The Mission Engagement and Support office will take on the additional work of funds development, interpretation and education for per capita – which would provide the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) a funds-development capacity it currently doesn’t have – and for the Presbyterian Historical Society.
- Special Offerings would continue to be self-funded.
- All other expenses of the office will be funded through unrestricted funds.
The rationale states, in part, that the commission believes “it is important to have a cohesive, consistent, and theologically sound process for interpreting the missional and ecclesial work of the church.” While PMA “has the proper infrastructure in place to adequately interpret, educate and raise funds, the Office of the General Assembly has no such infrastructure in place, available, or within monetary reason. … The commission believes that this could serve as a meaningful first step in centralizing all funds-development operations across all agencies and entities of the denomination.”
Recommendation: Sharing unrestricted bequests and fits. The commission is recommending that PMA and OGA share all unrestricted bequests, and all unrestricted gifts over $50,000, at a ratio equal to the cost allocation percentage that the agencies have agreed upon for splitting administrative costs. That percentage currently is 80% for PMA and 20% for OGA, reflecting the relative size of their budgets.
Recommendation: Coordination table and unified budget. The commission is recommending the creation of a “collaborative table” for ongoing ministry coordination between PMA, OGA and ASG.
Subjects that could be part of that collaboration could include:
- Responses to referrals from the General Assembly.
- Ongoing or emerging mission and ministry.
- Vision.
- Developing and assessing a unified budget.
The table’s membership would include executive leaders and senior staff from the agencies; leadership from the agencies’ governing boards or committees; and others needed to provide expertise on particular subjects.
The commission is also looking for a way to build into the process more permanently something that’s happening by agreement for the 2021-2022 budget cycle: a way of developing and presenting a unified budget for PMA, OGA and ASG.
It’s been somewhat unclear, however, what exactly a “unified budget” means – whether it’s simply a joint presentation of the budgets the individual agencies have worked out, or if leaders of the agencies work together to determine funding priorities and to share resources.
The commission’s recommendation calls for continuing the current unified budget process until the boards or committees of PMA, OGA and A Corporation approve language in the appropriate documents to formalize that process, and the 2022 General Assembly ratifies those changes.
It also states that “the unified budget will have a mutuality of focus, efficiencies in processes, and movement towards a shared vision as well as a sharing of all resources to meet the financial needs of all A-Corporation entities. It will be presented and approved as a single budget with multiple revenue streams.”
Some commission members wanted to be fairly explicit about how PC(USA) leaders would develop that unified budget. “We’re casting a vision for what it could look like,” said Debra Avery.
But James Tse responded that being too specific “muddies the waters” and that the commission should not get involved in trying to “legislate too much” about exactly how the budget gets created.
For the 2021-2022 budget – which won’t be formally presented until April – some agreements already are in place, some of them emerging from a closed-door budget summit last fall to which Moving Forward summoned leaders from OGA, PMA and ASG. In part, that agreement calls for PMA to, over the next two years, waive taking about $1.4 million in per capita funding as a way to help OGA ease its budget difficulties.
Also part of that understanding: OGA will propose a flat expense budget for 2021 and 2022; contribute 5% to rebuild its reserves; and propose the lowest possible General Assembly per capita rate increase it can get by with, and still do the needed work.
What’s not there: A recommendation to begin the process of merging PMA and OGA. That’s something the Special Committee on Per Capita Based Funding and National Church Financial Sustainability is asking the assembly to do in its five recommendations, approved earlier this week.
Recommendation: Shared services. One recommendation involves requirements for using services such as information technology or payroll that ASG provides.
ASG provides those services for a fee – and Moving Forward is recommending that only PMA and OGA (the agencies “under the A Corporation umbrella,” as the rationale for the recommendation puts it) be required to use the ASG services going forward. Other PC(USA) agencies which contract for those services can decide for themselves whether to continue to purchase the services past 2020.
What’s not there: This recommendation, if approved, would change a previous requirement that all PC(USA) agencies use ASG services through a transition period ending in 2022. The rationale states that the commission believes that ASG “is doing an effective job at providing the services both desired and required” and is “committed to a service-delivery model which is designed to continually improve and expand service delivery going forward.”
Recommendation: Presbyterian Mission Agency Board changes. The commission is recommending eliminating the PMA board’s property/legal committee – since legal matters now rest with the A Corporation board.
What’s not there: The commission dropped two other potential recommendations it had considered:
- Changing the title of the PMA leader from “president and executive director” to simply “executive director,” and
- Changing the name of the governing body from the “PMA board” to “PMA committee.” The reason that was considered: In 2018, the denomination’s corporate functions moved the PMA board to the board of the PC(USA), A Corporation. The revised wording would reflect parity between the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (governing the ecclesial functions of the church) and the PMA board (governing the mission functions of the church).
When the PMA board met Feb. 12-14 in Baltimore, there particularly was resistance to the idea of changing the title of the PMA leader – including the message it would send to “remove that title from a black woman,” as board member Floretta Watkins put it, referring to Diane Moffett, who currently holds that position. Even prior to that, some commission members had raised concerns that changing the title might be interpreted as showing disrespect to Moffett.
There was “hard pushback” from both the Advocacy Committee on Women’s Concerns and the Racial Equity Advocacy Committee to the proposed name change for the PMA leader, said Moving Forward co-moderator Marco Grimaldo.
When it came down to it, the commission took those potential name changes off the table.
Recommendation: Diverse Voices Table. The 2018 General Assembly created a Diverse Voices Table, made up of staff representatives from PC(USA) agencies, to consider issues of equity and inclusion. That assembly also instructed the agencies to complete “race audits” every four years – which is in progress now for most of the agencies (all but the Board of Pensions, which has its own approach) through the work of the Washington Consulting Group.
The Diverse Voices Table has drafted is own set of recommendations to the assembly – among them, that the table continue its work; that the equity and inclusion audits be done every six years (instead of four), to give more time to implement changes; and that the audits and progress in implementing them be made part of the agency reviews.
What’s not been clear: What’s the mechanism for the Diverse Voices Table to report to the General Assembly?
So, the commission approved a recommendation essentially supporting the work of the Diverse Voices Table and asking the General Assembly to continue the work the table is doing. That recommendation includes language from the administrative action of the Way Forward Commission, stating that “this important work of inclusion and equity is not relegated to one office or group, but instead would become a unified effort that permeates the entire denominational structure and potentially beyond.”
Recommendation: Review committees. The commission is proposing some changes in the six-year cycle through which PC(USA) agencies are reviewed – in part to make sure that a review of the A Corporation and ASG (which is not technically a denominational agency) is included.
The recommendation is that three of the six PC(USA) agencies be reviewed in the first two-year cycle; the other three agencies be reviewed in the second two years; and the last two years would include an all-agency review and review of the A Corporation and ASG.
Recommendation: Transparency and trust. The commission is asking the assembly to add the Way Forward Commission’s action on trust and transparency to the General Assembly Manual.
Recommendation: Legal action. This recommendation asks the General Assembly to ratify an action the commission took in closed session in June 2019 to make it clear that the board of the A Corporation (rather than the PMA board) has authority to manage matters of secular litigation involving the PC(USA).
Other information
The commission’s report to the assembly also may provide information on other work the commission has done that doesn’t require assembly action. That potentially may include:
- Surveys: A reference to surveys the commission has conducted of employees of each of the six PC(USA) agencies, along with ASG, to assess agency culture, the levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and to suggest changes if needed.
- Communication. An update on improving PC(USA) communications. The commission has been in conversation with what’s known as “6 Comm” – the directors of communication for the six PC(USA) agencies. The hope: to make improvements relatively quickly, particularly through redesigning the denomination’s main website. The reality: it’s taking longer than at least some commissioners would like.
- Bits and pieces. The commission also has been involved in conversations about theological education, vision for the PC(USA) and more.
What’s not there: A recommendation for another commission to succeed the Moving Forward Implementation Commission.
Once it’s submitted and edited, the commission’s full report will be available on PC-biz.
