04206
May 3, 2004

28 national staffers lose jobs

2004-’05 budget cut by $4.6 million; 37 positions eliminated

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE — Presbyterian Church (USA) staff leaders have finished work on a plan that trims $4.6 million from the 2005-2006 mission budget and eliminates 37 national staff positions, nine of which are now vacant.

     The plan also realigns the PC(USA)’s programs to more closely match priorities and objectives established by the General Assembly Council (GAC) last winter, and continues a three-year trend of “flattening” the management pyramid at the Presbyterian Center.

     The budget cuts, which are permanent, were necessary to balance the 2005 and 2006 mission budgets at $114.4 million. Because it is a two-year plan, said GAC Executive Director John Detterick, “We don’t anticipate having to go through this again next year.”

            The Congregational Ministries Division (CMD) will sustain cuts of $1.33 million and 10 positions; the National Ministries Division (NMD), $1.16 million and 13 positions; the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD), $980,000 but no positions; Mission Support Services (MSS), $473,000 and six positions; and the office of the executive director and deputy executive director (EDO), $670,000 and eight positions.

     The cuts were made from the $32.7-million “unrestricted” portion of the mission budget, which accounts for less than 29 percent of the GAC’s total income.

     Less than two decades ago, the bulk of the church’s income was unrestricted. Because of the dramatic shift to designated giving, Detterick said, “We really are in a time of transition, where we have to look at how we receive and distribute mission funds ... and be more proactive in going with the flow of the trend toward designated giving.”

     The planned cuts were made known to the affected employees on Monday, May 3. They won’t become final until May 10, when the GAC’s executive committee will be asked to sign off on the plan.

     Most of the 28 people who are losing their jobs will complete their work by the end of this week.

     “Their departure ... tears at the fabric of our life around here,” said Kathy Lueckert, the deputy executive director of the council. “We are grateful and thankful for the work they have done, and wish them Godspeed.”

     The cuts range from top management to the lowest level of staff support. One of the positions to be eliminated is that of the chief information technology officer, a member of the Staff Leadership Team.

     Sixteen of the positions are “exempt” (for program professionals), while 12 are in support areas.

     Twenty-one of the 28 people who will lose their jobs are females. Fifteen are Caucasian, eight African-American, four Hispanic and one Native American. They range in age from 28 to 71.

     In addition, four second-tier management positions have been downgraded:

     The associate director for Christian education and leadership development in CMD will become coordinator for conference ministries and covenant groups; CMD’s associate director for theological education will become coordinator for theological education; the associate director for women’s ministries in NMD will become coordinator for women’s ministries; and NMD’s associate director for social justice will become associate for corporate witness.

     The downgrades will mean that the number of associate directors has been cut by about two-thirds in three years, to fewer than 10. During those three years, more than 100 jobs at the Presbyterian Center have been eliminated.

     Detterick said making this round of budget decisions has been “very, very difficult,” because “every cut eliminates something beneficial to the church.”

     However, Detterick praised the GAC for its work in setting priorities. “This year is very different (from the previous two rounds of cuts),” he said, “because, thanks to the GAC, we have a solid framework, a way to hold every decision up to the same measurement.”

     The council in February developed a comprehensive Mission Work Plan (MWP) based on four priorities — evangelism and witness, justice and compassion, spirituality and discipleship, and leadership and vocation —  and 24 specific objectives.

     “GAC taking leadership to establish objectives enabled us to be more focused,” said the Rev. Don Campbell, the CMD director. “The decisions weren’t any easier, but the clearer focus will help us be more flexible and responsive to emerging needs in the church.”

     The cuts in CMD reflect Campbell’s belief that “it is not possible to make reductions based on efficiencies to be gained and redundancies eliminated.” The most significant, he said, is the elimination of the Church Leader Support program, whose purpose was to strengthen lay leadership in the church.

     That choice was made, Campbell said, because six of the mission plan’s seven leadership objectives concerned ministers rather than elders.

     “We had to go there,” he said. “Next budget cycle, we’ll take another look and see where the energy is needed then.”

     Lay leader development will still be the focus of a relatively new “Company of Elders” program funded by the Lilly Endowment, he said.

     In the meantime, he added, the new coordinator for conference ministries and covenant groups will work with grass-roots Presbyterians organizations such as Presbyterian Men and the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators. “It’s important to help covenant groups take on more responsibility for their ministries,” Campbell said.

     Detterick said the new mission work plan “is clearly calling us away from a corporate, hierarchical model into one that’s more networked and relationship-based.”

     “I really believe God is leading us to some new understandings of how the national church participates in the ministry of the whole church,” he said.

     The cuts in WMD — of grants rather than jobs — reflect the shift from a corporate model to something new.

     “The more people we lose, the harder it is to maintain the flexibility to respond to our partners,” said the Rev. Marian McClure, the WMD director. “We have decided to stop or reduce grant-making for the sake of investing in people in mission.”

     In the past 20 years, McClure said, Presbyterian missionary work has changed from “doing for others” to working through a growing number of partnerships — between PC(USA) presbyteries and churches overseas and, increasingly, between congregations and international partners.

     “It’s crucial to keep grass-roots connections, so that our response grows and proliferates,” McClure said. “The trend is clearly toward greater decentralization, with local Presbyterians running with the ball. So we’re taking the long run and investing in missionaries and mission networks.”

     She added that less money for grants to overseas partners means “that we’re going to have to use what dollars are left very carefully, and where we’re the only ones who can respond.”

     One of the more controversial of the proposed trims is the elimination of women’s ministries staff working in the synods. That change will cut eight staff positions and save nearly $500,000.

     The NMD director, the Rev. Curtis Kearns, said those cuts can be traced to the “shape and form” downsizing of 1993, when full-time positions in each of the denomination’s 16 synods were made part-time. (Subsequent changes restored some of the positions to full time.) 

     “The area has struggled to make this system work, because of the enormous span of responsibility,” Kearns said, “because each of the staff is required to cover multiple synods. Every new adjustment made the workload increasingly more demanding, and it has been virtually impossible to provide the kind of additional support required.”

     Detterick said the cuts in women’s ministries will “probably have the biggest impact,” agreeing with Kearns that in the 11years since “shape and form,” it has become “increasingly clear that we have to find new ways to do things differently.” He said he “looks forward to working with Presbyterian Women and Women’s Ministries to seek out those new ways —  and when we do, we’ll have to find the money to do them. Our commitment to the women of the church and the world doesn’t change.”

     Other effects of the proposed cuts:

• Presbyteries, synods and Presbyterian Center employees will no longer receive free PresbyNet subscriptions;
• Full-time staff support the church’s computer communications network will no longer be provided;
• The formal evaluation of GAC programs, a process that Lueckert said “never found a home,” will stop, with the loss of a staff position in Research Services;
• The separate budget office in NMD’s evangelism and church development program will be eliminated;
• National and regional theology and liturgy seminars will be affected by the loss of one position in CMD’s office of theology and worship;
• In-house Spanish language curriculum will be “out-sourced” to the United Methodist church (Campbell said only 90 of the 300 Spanish-language congregations in the PC(USA) are using Spanish-language denominational curriculum, resulting in a loss of about $100,000 a year.
• The office of stewardship and mission funding will be realigned (“The time is right, nearly everyone agrees, to examine the churchwide mission-funding system,” Detterick said).

     The GAC’s executive director said he remains upbeat about the PC(USA)’s future.

     “This is very painful, but we are moving on to something new,” he said. “There are better ways to get where God wants us to be, and we’ll find them.”

     The 28 currently filled positions to be be eliminated (pending approval by the GAC executive committee):

     EDO/Research Services — Associate for Evaluation

     EDO/Office of Information Services — Senior Systems Analyst

     EDO/Office of Information Services — Chief Information Technology Officer

     EDO/Office of Communication — Associate for PresbyNet; Managing Editor, Presbyterians Today

     MSS — Maintenance Helper; Assistant Purchasing Manager; Senior Accounting Clerk

     CMD/Congregational Ministries Publishing — Associate for Curriculum Development; Copy Editor

     CMD/Christian Education and Leader Development — Coordinator for Leader Support; Program Assistant for Youth and Young Adults; Senior Administrative Assistant; Senior Administrative Assistant; Intermediate Administrative Assistant

     NMD/Women’s Ministries — 5 Associates in Synods; Bilingual Secretary; Secretary; Assistant

     NMD/Social Justice — Senior Administrative Assistant

     NMD/Director’s Office — Intermediate Administrative Assistant

     NMD/Evangelism and Church Development — Associate for Budget

     NMD/Racial Ethnic Ministries — Intermediate Administrative Assistant

     NMD/Women’s Ministries — Intermediate Administrative Assistant

     The complete text of the budget and staff reduction plan is available on the denomination’s Web site at www.pcusa.org/pcnews/pdf/execctte050304.pdf.
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