The plan for now is this: The 2020 General Assembly will be asked to approve a General Assembly per capita rate for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) of $9.99 per member for 2021 and $10.50 per member for 2022.
That’s according to a unified budget proposal (A.102 Unified Budget) that the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) and Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) will consider in meetings those groups are holding virtually April 15-17.
The per capita rate currently is $8.95 per member – so the proposed new rates would mean an increase from the current rate of $1.04 per member for 2021 and $1.55 per member for 2022.
But here’s a caveat: The COVID-19 pandemic is having financial repercussions around the globe – including for the PC(USA). So denominational officials are trying to come up with their best projections of the impact the coronavirus will have on denominational finances – and may adjust the proposed budget by May 21, which is the 30-day deadline before the General Assembly was set (according to the original schedule) to convene.
Kathy Lueckert, president of the PC(USA), A Corporation – the corporate entity for the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Office of the General Assembly – told the A Corporation board in a Zoom meeting April 14 that the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, J. Herbert Nelson, is providing some leeway in the General Assembly reporting deadlines for a COVID-19 financial analysis.
The plan now is:
- April 5-17: PMAB and COGA would approve the proposed budgets for 2021-2022.
- May 7-8: Denominational leaders from the Presbyterian Mission Agency, Office of the General Assembly and Administrative Services Group would hold a budget summit to consider possible budget revisions.
- Week of May 11: The staffs of those agencies would incorporate the decisions made in the budget summits into their agency budgets.
- Week of May 18: PMAB, COGA and the A Corporation board would meet to consider the revised budgets.
- May 21: The revised budget for 2021 and 2022 would be submitted in time to meet the 30-day deadline for General Assembly business.
The unified budget that’s being presented this week calls for a $90.5 million budget for 2021 and $92.5 million for 2022. That breaks down to:
- A General Assembly per capita budget for the Office of the General Assembly of $15.1 million for 2021 and $15 million for 2022;
- A General Assembly mission budget for the Presbyterian Mission Agency of $73.3 million for 2021 and $75.3 million for 2022;
- An Administrative Services Group budget of $18 million for 2021 and $18.5 million for 2022.
The per capita budget is based on a projection of a PC(USA) membership reduction of 4.5% year over year, the report states. Per capita is the per member rate the General Assembly sets to support the ecclesiastical work of the national church.
Gifts and bequest of more than $50,000 would be distributed 80% to the Presbyterian Mission Agency and 20% to the Office of the General Assembly, reflecting the current cost-sharing formula for administrative costs between those agencies. The unified budget reflects a staff of 533 full-time and 51 part-time workers.
A cross-agency COVID-19 Financial Implications Team began work earlier this month to begin considering some of the fiscal ramifications of the pandemic, Lueckert said – including such things as things as whether vacant positions should be filled or kept open to save money and how much will be saved because of travel that’s been curtailed and meetings that are being held remotely rather than in person. (P.201-B – Responding to Financial Implications of COVID 19-v2)
That team is making projections using three models for projecting income and expenses, Lueckert said: optimistic, realistic and pessimistic.
She also said that the A Corporation has applied for an $8.8 million Paycheck Protection Program loan through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act – a $349 billion program that Congress approved to try to help businesses keep workers on their payrolls through these rough economic times. “We had to dip into our trust fund” for over $3 million in March to help with cash flow, Lueckert said. “Our current cash position is something we need to be really mindful of,” although she also said “we’re not in any danger of not being able to pay our bills or not being able to meet payroll.”
There is a sense, Lueckert said, that the biggest impact for the PC(USA) may be in changes to unrestricted giving rather than to Special Offerings such as One Great Hour of Sharing – she’s heard some encouraging reports on online giving to One Great Hour of Sharing at Easter.
She also said the PC(USA) may not feel the real impact of the market volatility until 2022, as the Presbyterian Foundation sends mission funds to the denomination using a spending formula based on market performance of investments with an 18-month lag.
Lueckert said the A Corporation also has been working with other PC(USA) entities, including Presbyterian Women and the Investment and Loan Program, to prepare their own Paycheck Protection Program loan applications, to “mitigate some of the future pain of payments upstream.”
Chris Mason and Bridget-Anne Hampden, co-chairs of the A Corporation board, expressed thanks to the A Corporation staff for their work in difficult times. “Our staff has performed really well,” Mason said. With people working remotely from their homes, “they could have taken this as an excuse to back off. … They have stepped up and done a very fine job.”
Lueckert said the Emergency Response Team for the Administrative Services Group has been working since February on coronavirus-related issues, including communicating with the PC(USA)’s national staff about travel bans and closing the national office building in Louisville. The global translation staff has been working “fast and furiously” in translating COVID-19 materials into Spanish and Korean, she said.
The materials the PC(USA) has provided, including a video Easter service led by Nelson and Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, has “really reaffirmed for congregations what it means to be a connectional church,” said A Corporation board member Carol Winkler.
Board members shared some of the impact of COVID-19 in their own contexts, with some reporting they have lost multiple friends to the illness – Thomas Priest knows of losses in “double digits” in Detroit – and some with family members who have presumably been ill with it but recovered. “It just reminds us of how tenuous life is,” Hampden said.
Board members spoke of joys and gratitude in this time as well: of a slower pace and of time spent in conversation with family and friends. “I miss baseball so much I can hardly stand it,” said Cynthia Campbell, who said she’s postponed her retirement to help lead the congregation she serves in Louisville through the pandemic. Bill Teng, who’s taken a new call as pastor in Florida, spoke of the strangeness of preaching an Easter sermon before Good Friday, so there would be time to post it on YouTube.
Sinthia Hernandez-Diaz spoke of the challenges of working at home while also trying to home-school her young son. And Winkler said she misses hugs from her grandchildren, who live just a few miles away but from whom she is staying physically isolated.
Some of the business the A Corporation board is considering is not coronavirus related. Board members gave reactions, for example, to a proposed design of the A Corporation’s annual report and to a communications plan under consideration.
And Lueckert told of the decisions she’s made in her role as A Corporation president for how $2 million received from the sale of the Ghost Ranch Plaza Resolana property in Santa Fe, New Mexico, (Santa Fe Actions Chart w Text of Actions) would be distributed:
- For coronavirus relief:
- $1 million to the Presbyterian Mission Agency;
- $200,000 to the Office of the General Assembly;
- $100,000 to the Administrative Services Group.
- $400,000 to the Menaul School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- $300,000 to the A Corporation for a property disposition fund, to be used to do work on other property issues for which the A Corporation needs to do legal work.
Lueckert said “there has been some concern raised by the PMA board about how the decision was made and where the money was going” – and said the issue may come up at the PMAB meeting later this week. A review of previous actions taken regarding the Santa Fe sale made it clear that the president of the A Corporation was to make that determination of where the money would go, she said – although before 2018 that power rested with the PMAB.
The A Corporation board concluded its meeting April 14 in closed session, and will continue its virtual meeting April 15 with committee reports.
