A comment by Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle   [6-4-06]

Exclusion from meetings raised ire of corresponding and at-large members

by Toya Hill and Alexa Smith, Presbyterian News Service
[posted here 5-3-06]

LOUISVILLE – April 29, 2006 – While the GAC worked quietly in closed session this week to reach decisions on the 2007-2008 General Assembly mission budgets, some folks outside the meetings did some fussing.

The complaints had to do with the process used to finalize the budget numbers.

Evelyn Kelly, vice moderator of the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns, killed time in the luxurious lobby of Louisville's famed Brown Hotel while the GAC and select staff gathered in another room. A seldom-used provision in its operating manual permits the council to meet privately and to exclude corresponding and at-large members -- like Kelly.

The decision to close the sessions to corresponding and at-large members was passed Wednesday, after a brief debate, by a vote of 26 to 23 . As a result, only 72 voting council members took part in the downsizing debate, while 18 others were left out.

The more common "executive session" permits at-large and corresponding members to stay at the table. The GAC operating manual doesn't say which provision should be used in specific situations.

"It's a waste of my time and a waste of the GAC's money to bring someone in and then to dismiss them or to exclude them," said Kelly, who traveled to Louisville from Washington state, only to be shut out of the meeting. "This demonstrated insensitivity and lack of concern for the time and effort of attendees."

Kelly added, "As a denomination that emphasizes inclusion, sensitivity and participation by its members, it saddens me that the GAC has demonstrated exclusion by its action."

It was GAC Executive Director John Detterick who put the question before the GAC whether to exclude or admit the corresponding and at-large members -- whose ranks include the General Assembly stated clerk, advocacy and advisory committee representatives and representative of related PC(USA) entities such as the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly and the Board of Pensions.

Detterick said it is the voting members who decide "who stays and who goes," including selected denominational staff members. "The accountability rests solely with the elected members," he told the Presbyterian News Service during a break between sessions.

Private sessions also protect staff, Detterick said, adding that senior GAC staff agonized before and during the council's meeting about how open the process ought to be -- from totally transparent to completely confidential.

They concluded, and the GAC concurred, that when it comes to cutting budgets it is impossible to separate people from programs. Detterick said leadership didn't want staff stressed by constantly changing blueprints of the reorganized national staff structure and changes in the fates of individual programs. "People do program," said GAC Chair Nancy Kahaian, emphasizing her support for confidentiality on the grounds that any budget discussion inevitably leads to conversation about personnel.

Kahaian told PNS that corresponding members could not be excluded without a vote by the entire GAC, so at-large and corresponding folks could not be alerted to their possible exclusion before making the trip to Louisville.

The fuss about confidentiality also raised questions about interpretation of the PC(USA)'s open-meeting policy, which limits closed sessions only to discussion of property negotiations, personnel, civil and criminal litigation or security.

Is debate about whether a GAC program meets the MWP goals a personnel matter? Or does it become so only when the discussion reaches the level of individual employees?

Reporters pushed for a clear definition of the term "personnel." No formal appeals for a ruling on the applicability of the open-meeting policy to the GAC's process was filed with the stated clerk, the arbiter of such disputes.

Detterick will give a brief rationale for the program choices during a press conference at 2 p.m. Monday after center employees have been notified of their employment status, and during a national staff meeting Tuesday at 2 in the Presbyterian Center Atrium.

GAC member John Bolt of Charleston, WV, a longtime newsman and former bureau chief for the Associated Press, defended the decision to go into private session. He said he considered the decision an "appropriate use of a private session," although he is generally opposed to closing meetings.

"We're identifying what jobs need to be done," he said. "And there's no way to divorce ourselves from the idea that a task is a person."

But retired Episcopal Bishop Douglas Theuner -- who has served as one of two ecumenical advisory representatives to the GAC for the past three years -- told PNS he's disappointed by the suggestion that corresponding members aren't discreet or that the council cannot discuss "important matters" in their company.

Theuner said that splitting a body that functions normally as a unit isn't a healthy way to do business, and "breeds suspicion."

The Rev. Jim Collie, the executive in Santa Fe Presbytery and a corresponding member of the GAC from the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, headed back to Albuquerque immediately after the vote to close the meeting. He said the GAC's rationale tasted like "weak tea," and he has questions about excluding the denomination's stated clerk and ecumenical advisory members, since both are mandated by The Book of Order to serve the GAC.

"I think that's a serious mistake that got shoved aside because everybody was moving so fast," said Collie, who intends to draft a report to COGA describing the meeting protocol. "In reality, the reason one has corresponding members is for a broadness of view beyond oneself. It's at the very moment when hard decisions are having to be made that corresponding members are at their most helpful."

The council, Collie said, "cut itself off" from the church community and adopted a "bunker mentality."

Since the MWP was adopted by the council in February, GAC staff (and some elected members) have engaged in a laborious process of deciding how to downsize the denomination's programs to conform to the eight MWP objectives. The plan is aimed at helping presbyteries and congregations do evangelism, fight poverty, embrace multi-culturalism, engage in peacemaking, bolster small churches, nurture families and better articulate Christian vocation and Reformed identity.

Dear Advocate,

The GAC release of terminated staff and additional staff lay-offs planned for October offers further evidence of the decline of Presbyterian mission and vitality. How else can this news be received? I wonder how much energy we retain for in-house arguments, when outside our narrow little world(which is shrinking rapidly) the peoples of the world observe our increasing irrelevance. We continue as Presbyterians to grow disconnected from younger generations, we have less and less to say and do about issues of poverty and injustice and war, and spend what little energy we have discussing what goes on in the bedrooms of individuals. My question is, Why would gay/lesbian/transgendered persons want to affiliate with such a dispirited group as Presbyterians?

Hart Edmonds
Omaha, NE

by Jerry L. Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service
[5-1-06]

LOUISVILLE -- May 1, 2006 -- The General Assembly Council has approved the most radical restructuring of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s mission program since 1993, as it moves to reduce the 2007-2008 General Assembly mission budget by $9.15 million.

In all, 75 national staff positions in Louisville have been eliminated - most effective May 1 - as well as 55 overseas mission co-worker positions. Staff cuts in Louisville account for $4 million of the budget reduction, while the price tag for the overseas mission positions is $1.2 million.

In a 19-page document released Monday entitled 2007-2008 Mission Work Plan: Objectives, Outcomes and Funded Work, the GAC outlines, objective by objective, the dramatic overhaul of its mission program work with an overview of the work involved in each objective, what it considers to be successful outcomes, and detailed rationales for the programmatic work that will be funded as well as work that will be discontinued or scaled back.

The sweeping organizational changes will, by October, eliminate the current Deputy for Mission Support Services and Deputy Executive Director positions and the existing ministry divisions - Congregational Ministries (CMD), National Ministries (NMD) and Worldwide Ministries - as well as the jobs of senior executive and top administrative staff of those divisions.

"As our work shifted from broad programmatic concerns to a tighter focus on the eight key objectives of the Mission Work Plan," said GAC Executive Director John Detterick, "the senior staff felt that our witness would be strengthened by realizing the significant savings that would come from reorganizing the senior leadership level to also focus on the objectives rather than programs."

Currently, the SLT is comprised of Detterick, a deputy executive director, the three division directors, the deputy for MSS and a middle governing bodies coordinator. When the transition is complete in October, the senior GAC staff will consist of the Executive Director, a Deputy Executive Director for Witness and Deputy Executive Director for Support Services.

The dramatic change in the SLT alone will cover more than $1 million of the budget reduction.

Other major cuts come from reducing mission program grants to congregations and presbyteries by $250,000 in each of the next two years and by slowing the rate of staff salary increases by $600,000 in 2007, which will result in total savings of $1.1 million by the end of 2008.

Programs that are being eliminated include:

Programs that will be scaled back include:

- programmatic support for small and rural churches and advocacy for rural farmers.
- consultation and regional training on congregational transformation plus analysis and evaluation of congregational transformation mission program grant applications.
- racial ethnic enhancement offices' funding for leadership development, scholarships for attending conferences, immigrant ministries, racial ethnic caucuses and Bible study fellowships.
- staffing in the Presbyterian Washington Office.
– coordination of young adult involvement in peace-related networks.
- the National Health Ministries office.
- Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare work not directly related to the MWP objectives.

Most of the staff cuts come from the unrestricted portion of the mission budget, which represents about one-third of the total budget (and the reductions).

Mission personnel are largely funded by restricted (designated) contributions, which comprise the other two-thirds of the budget, and thus two-thirds of the budget reductions.

Of the 77 eliminated positions, 16 are directly related to the dismantling of the ministry division structure and the restructuring of MSS, which has been undergoing an internal transition over the past two years. Nine of the eliminated positions are currently vacant, most of them in MSS.

Of the remaining 61 job cuts, 37 are in programmatic areas and 24 are in support services, such as financial services and communications.

About 15 new positions will be created for the new structure. Current employees will be eligible to apply for any new positions.

The reduction in the denomination's overseas missionary force is particularly painful, Detterick and WMD Director Marian McClure agreed.

"It takes 55 persons in mission service leaving for us to meet the $1.2 million deficit in money available for their support," McClure said. "Of these, we already know of about 40 persons leaving by attrition (concluding their terms of service or retiring)."

Attrition alone will not solve the shortfall, McClure added. "We need another 15 persons to leave to deal with this amount," she continued. "A staff team will work in various ways toward the goal that no one will end mission service for financial reasons alone."

Detterick pledged that everything possible will be done to avoid bringing missionaries home before their current terms are up. "We've committed to everything possible not to call them home in the middle of their terms," Detterick said.

Rather than ministry divisions, programmatic work will be organized around teams related to the objectives. The 2007-2008 budgets approved by the GAC allocate money according to the MWP objectives, not the traditional program entities.

The new structure is built around the four goals of the Mission Work Plan: Evangelism and Witness, Justice and Compassion, Leadership and Vocation, and Spirituality and Discipleship - and the eight more concrete objectives that flesh them out: evangelism, multi-cultural ministry, poverty, peacemaking, Reformed identity, family ministry, Christian vocation and small churches.

Overall, the MWP emphasizes the GAC's determination to de-emphasize its own programmatic role in the PC(USA) in order to more strongly support the ministries of congregations and presbyteries.

"We didn't do this just to cut a budget," Detterick said.

"In moving to an objective-based structure, we will be in a stronger position to facilitate the mission activities of the presbyteries and congregations of the PC(USA)," he explained.

Positions announced today, names released Tuesday

Detterick announced the positions that are being eliminated today. Formal release of the names of laid off employees will be delayed until Tuesday. "We wanted to give those employees the opportunity to tell their family and friends before they read about it in the press," he said.

Positions being eliminated effective May 1:

Associate for Christian Education and Young Adult Ministry, CMD
Associate for Marketing, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Coordinator for Curriculum Development, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Coordinator of Marketing, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Desktop Publisher/Web Designer, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Graphic Designer, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Marketing Associate, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Senior Administrative Assistant, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Term Employee, Congregational Ministries Publishing, CMD
Associate for Family and Single Adult Ministries, Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, CMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, CMD
Associate for Asian American Congregational Leadership, Theology and Worship, CMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Theology and Worship, CMD Term Employee, Theology and Worship, CMD
Senior Administrative Assistant, Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy
Associate Producer, Media Services, Office of Communication
Associate Producer, Media Services, Office of Communication
Associate for News Services, Presbyterian News Service, Office of Communication
Copy Editor/Formatter, Presbyterian News Service, Office of Communication
Human Resources Information Systems Administrator, Human Resources
Senior Administrative Assistant, Human Resources
Term Employee, Human Resources
Associate for Administration, Executive Director's Office
Internal Auditor, Internal Audit Office, MSS
Real Estate Manager, Finance and Accounting Services, MSS
Senior Accounting Clerk, Finance and Accounting Services, MSS
Senior Accounting Clerk, Finance and Accounting Services, MSS
Senior Accounting Clerk, Finance and Accounting Services, MSS
Senior Accounting Clerk, Finance and Accounting Services, MSS
Programming Team Manager, Office of Information Services, MSS
Senior Computer Operator, Office of Information Services, MSS
Switchboard Operator, Building Services, MSS
Customer Service Representative, Presbyterian Distribution Service, MSS
Associate for Congregational Transformation, Evangelism, NMD
Associate for Network Support, Small and Rural Churches, Evangelism, NMD
Coordinator for Presbyterian Evangelism/NMD Mission Initiative, Evangelism, NMD
Associate Director for Social Justice/Corporate Witness, Justice and Compassion, NMD
Editor, Church and Society magazine, Justice and Compassion, NMD
Senior Administrative Assistant, Justice and Compassion, NMD
Term Employee, Justice and Compassion, NMD
Church Leadership Connection Consultant, Leadership & Vocation, NMD
Associate for Publications, Presbyterian Washington Office, NMD
Associate Relating to Latin America and the Caribbean, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Associate for Ecumenical Coordination and Facilitation, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Associate Relating to the Middle East and Europe, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Coordinator for Ecumenical and Mission Partnerships, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Coordinator for Central, South and Southeast Asia, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Coordinator for Global Education and International Leadership Development, WMD
Coordinator for Southern and East Africa, WMD
Program Assistant for Mission Partnerships, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Ecumenical Partnerships, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Global Service and Witness, WMD
Associate for Missionary Compensation and Benefits, People in Mutual Mission, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, People in Mutual Mission, WMD

Positions being eliminated effective October 1:

Director, CMD
Coordinator, CMD
Executive Assistant to the Director, CMD
Deputy Executive Director, Executive Director's Office
Chief Financial Officer/Director, MSS
Executive Assistant to the Director, MSS
Director, NMD
Executive Assistant to the Director, NMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Director's Office, NMD
Coordinator for Resources Administration, NMD
Director, WMD
Executive Assistant to the Director, WMD
Intermediate Administrative Assistant, Director's Office, WMD
Senior Administrative Assistant, Director's Office, WMD
Associate for Personnel and Administration, WMD
Coordinator of Finance and Administration, WMD