GAC budget

GAC adopts $136 million budget for '02

Funds shifted into mission program areas considered "high-impact"

by John Filiatreau, Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE -- 1-March-2001 -- The General Assembly Council (GAC) adopted a proposed mission budget for 2002 of a little more than $136 million during its meeting here Feb. 21-24, and also approved a new budget process intended to make it more systematic and "transparent" and to insure that input is sought from all PC(USA) entities.

The 2002 budget includes $49.8 million for the Worldwide Ministries Division, $30.7 million for National Ministries Division, $22.6 million for Congregational Ministries Division and $6.3 million for Mission Support Services. The 2002 budget will be presented to the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s 213th General Assembly for approval in June.

Mortgage Corporation

The GAC also voted to approve the formation of a new Presbyterian Mortgage Corporation, in effect making it possible for the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program (PILP) to make more funds available for lending to PC(USA) borrowers.

The new corporation would raise funds by "selling" future interest revenue from PILP loans to financial institutions in exchange for cash equal to the loan principal. The measure would enable PILP to comply with capital-reserve regulations that otherwise limit the volume of loans it can make available for lending.

PILP has outstanding loans approaching $40 million. Officials say loan demand in the PC(USA) exceeds $330 million a year.

The GAC's Mission Support Services Committee had endorsed the plan during its meeting earlier in the week. It must also be approved by the General Assembly in June.

Some GAC members had misgivings about the proposal because of concerns about possible financial risk, but were reassured that the risk to the denomination is negligible.

PILP President Ken Grant said the new corporation is scheduled to begin operations in January 2003.

Curriculum

The GAC also approved a recommendation from the Congregational Ministries Division (CMD)that curriculum publishing no longer be expected to be financially self-sustaining.

CMD Committee Chair Lynn Shurley said the curriculum publishing area has not been self-sufficient "in the past" and cannot realistically be expected to pay its own way in the future. He said CMD officials have been doomed to "a mad scramble at the end of the year to find funds from anywhere" - what CMD Director Don Campbell calls "budget-reconciliation funds" - to offset its loss.

Shurley said hard-working curriculum staff members are weary after years of "catching up, making up and evening-out" and still ending every year with an "inevitable sense of failure," and now look forward to being "on a level playing field with all the other mission activities of the church."

The curriculum area's loss for 2000 was about $850,000. [NOTE: This figure is corrected from the previously reported loss of $1.4; Presbyterian News Service has issued the correction.]

The GAC voted to approve "budget-reconciliation" allocations to cover curriculum publishing expenses for 2001 ($216,454) and 2002 ($246,348) - whereupon GAC Deputy Director Joey Bailey announced that funds were available elsewhere in the budget to reduce the 2001 figure to just $5,721, prompting a burst of applause.

The measure approved by GAC scraps the "business model" that has been applied to curriculum publishing and replaces it with a "service model," acknowledging that the creation of denomination-specific curriculum is a part of the church's mission, and therefore should be supported out of "mission dollars."

New Initiatives

Also included in the budget are six new mission initiatives for 2002 with a total estimated annual cost of more than $1.2 million:

The creation of a Human Resources recruiting team to centralize recruiting, advertising and interviewing for open positions in the PC(USA) and to improve diversity in hiring: $175,000 a year.

The hiring of a Chief Information Officer for the Office of Information Services to do strategic analysis of GAC system needs: $125,000. l A new Integrated Stewardship pilot program that is to begin in 2001 and continue into 2003; a program director and four Stewardship Officers would be hired to support stewardship at the congregational and middle governing body levels and coordinate that work with that of the staffs of PILP and the Presbyterian Foundation: $550,000.

A racial-ethnic leadership development initiative that will identify racial-ethnic individuals with leadership potential and equip them for service through a program of management training: $100,000.

A funds-development "incubator" program that would pay some of the start-up costs of funds-development efforts in several program areas ($175,000).

A "data warehouse" system that would replace more than a dozen uncoordinated and redundant databases now maintained by various PC(USA) entities ($150,000).

Under a plan announced before the GAC meeting, each of the three ministry divisions will contribute 1 percent of its total unrestricted budget to what GAC Executive Director John Detterick has called a "pool" of funds to be redistributed to "high-impact" programs within the divisions in the areas of evangelism and discipleship. An additional 1.5 percent of unified money from support services, such as finance and accounting, research, communications, human resources, property management and the Presbyterian Distribution Service, also will go into the pool.

Two support agencies - the Office of Information Services and the Mission Partnership Funding office - are exempt from the assessment. Mission Partnership funds, which go to synods and presbyteries, are already committed, Detterick said, and OIS is exempt "because we need to beef up our technological infrastructure, not cut back on it."

Detterick estimated that the divisions - which will draw from the pool in proportion to their share of the total unified budget - will get back 1.2 percent for their 1 percent contribution. Support services will get back nothing.

The redistribution plan, unveiled during a Feb. 20 meeting of the council's executive committee, grew out of the controversial prioritization process the GAC initiated last fall, in which every program was rated "high-impact," "medium-impact" or "low-impact" in terms of the council's top priorities - evangelism and discipleship.