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:
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.
