LOUISVILLE—Presbyterians are withholding more than twice as much per capita in 2007, compared with previous years, revealed Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick in an October 3 report to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA). Kirkpatrick chose to couch the news differently, however, breezily asserting in his budget report that “everything is basically on target.”
| Despite increased withholding in the PCUSA, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick claims that the denominational budget is “on target.” (File photo) |
Kirkpatrick made this assertion in spite of having to concede that his office has faced reduced expenditures of “roughly three-fourths of a million dollars,” an approximate five percent reduction that necessitated cutting seven people from his staff. And even though Kirkpatrick had famously predicted last February that our troubled denomination “is in a potential tipping point of renewed growth and vitality,” his report to COGA acknowledged that the denomination “will likely experience a spike in [membership losses] in 2008.”
Kirkpatrick’s office reported the more than doubled rate of per capita withholding by putting it this way: “We have dropped from a per capita collection rate of 98 percent to around 95 percent.” In other words, when in previous years only 2 percent of per capita was withheld, recently roughly 5 percent of per capita is withheld, which is 2.5 times greater.
In setting the budget at the 2006 General Assembly, $350,000 of per capita was expected to be uncollectible. That was a large figure, considered to be a liberal estimate at the time. Now, it looks as if at least $485,000 of per capita expected to be received in 2007 will need to be written off as uncollectible at the end of the year. That figure is about four percent of the per capita budget.
The ever-affable Stated Clerk said that he likes to dwell on the 96 percent payment rate. “I prefer to look at the doughnut rather than the hole,” he explained. Okay. So twice as much per capita is being withheld? No problem, Kirkpatrick seems to be implying. We still have 96 percent voluntarily paid.
Oh Where, Oh Where Has Per Capita Gone?
What’s the problem that is causing the doubling of per capita nonpayment? Not once in this setting did the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) report or the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly consider the obvious explanation—that trust has eroded, and sessions and presbyteries are “voting” on the denomination with their checkbooks. There was no soul searching about misplaced priorities, denominational leaders shooting themselves in the foot, or gross miscalculations about the waning loyalty of fed-up constituents. No, there was only a businesslike recalculation of a reduced budget.
For instance, concerning the percentage of per capita pay-up, “each percentage point equals about $140,000,” according to the OGA report. Thus, if four percent is withheld, rather than two percent, OGA loses another $280,000 beyond the $280,000 it had expected to lose. Or each member lost is another $5.77 that the OGA doesn’t receive in per capita payments. Thus, “each 40,000-member loss means a budget reduction of $230,000,” the report explained.
And the OGA knows now that not only individuals but entire church rosters are slipping out of its supply chain. In fact, the OGA expectation that far more than 40,000 members will be lost in 2008 gets attributed to “the appeal of the New Wineskins groups for churches to leave the denomination.”
This is, of course, an inadequate explanation, for at least two reasons. First, New Wineskins is a long-brewing response to years and years of frustration over a denomination straying from its beliefs and practices. New Wineskins has not created a problem; it is a response to a very real problem created by denominational mismanagement.
Second, New Wineskins churches are not monolithically fixated on leaving the denomination. They have set up a mechanism for a decent and orderly departure, and a small number of congregations (so far) are availing themselves of that option. But New Wineskins also affirms that staying in the PCUSA could be a “faithful option.” And, at this point, the large majority of New Wineskins congregations are staying put, while seeking to practice fidelity and connectionalism in more satisfying ways.
Something Doesn’t Add Up
It is worth recalling that, back in March, Kirkpatrick had glumly announced the need to downsize the OGA by five percent, or about $750,000. Prudently, he then said, seven employees would have to lose their jobs to keep the books balanced. That decision was reflected in the 2008 per capita budget approved at this October meeting, which eliminated about $500,000 along with the seven staff positions. That adjustment leaves the other $250,000 in cuts apparently not needed after all.
But the numbers get more complicated. In March, Kirkpatrick had attributed the need to cut the budget to two sources: less per capita pay-up and greater losses of members than anticipated. That explanation seemed odd, since only the summer before at General Assembly, OGA had built a large cushion into the 2008 per capita budget, with the expectation of $350,000 in uncollected per capita and an unprecedented 85,000-member loss for the year.
One would think that such generous estimates would have been sufficient, and that the OGA would not have to plunge into crisis mode and downsize just nine months later. Then it turned out that the 2006 membership losses were actually 46,544, which was 38,456 better than the 85,000 expected. In fact, at $5.77 per head, the smaller decline should produce an additional $221,891 in unexpected per capita income. However, it looks as if withheld per capita will be worse than the expected $350,000, lopping another $135,000 off the per capita actually paid.
Thus, on the whole, the amount to be received in per capita ought to be roughly $87,000 more than the projected amount from June 2006 when the budget was set. Why then the announced need for a $750,000 cut in March, which turned into a $500,000 cut approved in October?
If anticipated membership losses and per capita pay-up were to account for the drastic reductions, and yet their actual net effect provided an additional $87,000 for the budget, what then might be the true explanation for the drastic budget cut? That question was never brought up, and it definitely remains unanswered.
Who Is Withholding Per Capita?
A list of presbyteries with “outstanding per capita receipts” was included in the COGA papers. “Outstanding,” it should be noted, does not mean “terrific” here; it means money not yet paid. Of the presbyteries with the greatest percentage unpaid, Hanmi (100 percent unpaid), Atlantic Korean (63 percent), Mississippi (48 percent), Dakota (46 percent), and Shenango (41 percent) led the list on August 31. Eleven presbyteries owed more than 20 percent of their apportionment. Fifty of 173 presbyteries (29 percent) had not fully paid their apportionment.
In terms of the amount not yet paid, Greater Atlanta topped the list with $51,870 unpaid, followed by Blackhawk ($37,437), Shenango ($35,944), Peace River ($30,882), and Hanmi ($29,627). New Covenant owed over $40,000 at the end of August, but it is paying monthly and is expected to complete full payment in December.
A quick glance at the withholding presbyteries indicates that nongeographical presbyteries are overrepresented on the list: Hanmi, Atlantic Korean, and Dakota. Mississippi Presbytery is still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. “We have seen some slippage,” Kirkpatrick noted. He gave the example of “one presbytery that has always paid 100 percent, but is literally on the edge of bankruptcy and cannot do that.”
Donegal Presbytery was singled out for having a whopping $4.58 left unpaid. A cup was sent around the room for COGA members to donate toward Donegal’s redemption. By the time the cup returned, more than enough had been collected to zero out Donegal Presbytery’s per capita obligation. Make that 49 presbyteries that owe some per capita to the OGA.
Larger Philosophical Questions About Per Capita
What expenses get charged to the per capita budget? One answer is “A heck of a lot!” ($13,876,560 for 2007). But beyond the staggering amount, what makes an expense a per capita expense? That answer is fuzzy.
The Book of Order offers little help, with an amazingly brief mention of per capita: “Each body above the session shall prepare a budget annually for its operating expenses, including administrative personnel, and may fund it with a per capita apportionment among the particular churches within its bounds” (G-9.0404d). That’s it, just “operating expenses, including administrative personnel.” From this alone, a $14 million enterprise has mushroomed!
In the past, an “OGA/GAC per capita table” had convened to sort out which costs get paid in the mission budget and which get covered by per capita. That ad hoc body apportioned millions of dollars of expenses into the two separate budgets—the per capita budget supposedly for the costs of the necessary ecclesial apparatus and the mission budget for the costs of doing the ministry of the church. That table has been inactive for some time, however.
Part of the COGA budget report at this meeting was a motion “to reactivate the GAC/COGA per capita table for the purpose of reviewing and evaluating the mission and work covered by the per capita budget and the general mission budget to determine what work and ministry would be best accomplished in which budget.” The motion carried, and the COGA moderator has the task of appointing three COGA members to serve on the reactivated per capita table.
This is a time when undesignated giving to General Assembly-level entities is drying up, due to presbyteries and congregations feeling both capable of doing their own work and distrusting the way “national” has spent what it had been given in the past. Thus, pressure naturally rises to include additional expenses in the per capita budget. Because paying per capita is treated as a moral (although not legal) obligation, that stream of income remains reasonable assured—apart from scattered presbyteries’ inability or unwillingness to give.
If an agency can get its work covered under the per capita budget, it is safer than if it were vulnerable to the accelerated shrinkage in the mission budget. For this reason, the per capita table will need to sharpen its pencils and exercise great restraint to keep the per capita budget from bloating all the more in a time of want.
In addition, however, the per capita table may want to take a second look at some items now in the per capita budget for no airtight reason. For instance, over a million dollars is given in grants to ecumenical groups—the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Another $858,000 goes to “Ecumenical and Agency Relations.” Another $1.88 million goes to fund General Assembly Council administration. One wonders if all of that was really intended in the two words “operating expenses” mentioned in the Book of Order.
Coming: An Open Tab for Per Capita?
Now hold on. Per capita could soon take a wild, arguably irresponsible ride. If the proposed rewrite of the Form of Government (FOG) were to be approved, all of this per capita discussion would be moot. The new FOG would do away with the per capita budget altogether, rolling all governing body expenditures into a single annual budget.
Thus the General Assembly, one’s synod, and one’s presbytery could combine what is presently per capita and mission expenses, total up the cost of both budgets together, and bill one’s presbytery for the entire amount. The presbytery “shall be responsible for raising [its] own funds and for raising and timely transmission of requested funds” to its synod and the General Assembly. That’s how the new Form of Government would read (see the final paragraph of the proposed G-3.0107).
How would the presbytery get the money to pay the combined per capita and mission expenses of the presbytery, the synod, and General Assembly? You may not want to know!
Here’s what the new FOG says: “Presbyteries may apportion requested funds to sessions within their bounds.”
In other words, presbyteries would bill the churches. Where a congregation now may feel an obligation to pay its per capita apportionment, under the new FOG, it would be expected to pay its apportioned share of whatever combined tab presbytery, synod, and General Assembly may choose to run up!
And what’s even more disconcerting is the absence of any specifics as to how presbytery might choose to apportion the massive bill. The apportionment need not be strictly “per head,” an equal amount per member. The presbytery could conceivably decide to punish some churches with a larger share of the bill and privilege others with a free ride.
That’s the thing about the proposed new FOG: It is purposefully sketchy and vague, allowing for widely varying practices and far greater opportunity for mischief. The way the new FOG would expand and then require per capita payments provides yet one more reason to oppose the approval of the new—and actually perilous—Form of Government.
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