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Board makes budget cuts
March 2001
The Massachusetts Conference Board of Directors has scaled back both salary increases and new program initiatives for 2001, due to lower than expected church giving in 2000.
After four years of larger-than-expected increases in Our Church's Wider Mission Basic Support, the Board had hoped for another sizable jump in giving in 2000.
That did not materialize, however. Basic support contributions totaled $2,292,807, marking a 1.4 percent increase over 1999. The Annual Meeting had approved a budget based on the goal of a 5 percent increase. That meant an income that was $24,100 less than expected for the Conference, and $44,800 less than was expected for the national setting of the United Church of Christ. (Thirty-five percent of the Basic Support was retained by the Conference and 65 percent was passed on to the national UCC.)
“A five percent increase was optimistic to begin with,” said Conference Business Manager Dawn Hammond. “It had been a deliberate choice to be optimistic because of the Vision for Renewal and Growth and the excitement around that, and because of the excitement around the 5.4 percent increase we saw in 1999.”
Fortunately for the Conference, income from Fellowship Dues was $28,000 higher than expected, which prevented the Conference from ending 2000 with a deficit.
However, the drop-off in Basic Support increases has raised concerns for the 2001 budget
“The challenge is the 2001 budget, which included the goal of another 5 percent increase on top of the 5 percent increase projected for 2000,” Hammond said. The Board of Directors has voted to lower the projected increase for 2001 to 2 percent.
“What that means is instead of having a 10 percent increase over two years, we're now looking at a 3.4 percent increase over two years,” Hammond said. “So the Board cannot do all it hoped with salaries and programs.”
The Board reduced the pay increases for the staff from the planned 3.5 percent to 2.5 percent.
Susannah Baker, Associate Conference Minister for Policy and Administration, said the lower pay raises are a concern, both for their possible effect on retaining current staff — particularly support staff — and in the search process for new executive staff members.
“The search committee for minister and president and the three area minister search committees have expressed concern that the compensation packages being offered are not competitive enough to attract a good selection of candidates,” Baker said. “Right now area ministers make about $12,000 less than the median salary for senior pastors of Conference churches with 500-plus members.”
Meanwhile, the other area where the Board is not increasing the budget as much as planned is in programming proposed by the Conference's commissions.
The Board had invited the commissions to develop new program initiatives that were in line with the Vision for Renewal and Growth when making their 2001 budget requests. As a result, many of the commissions requested budget increases to cover new programming. Some of that programming will now be postponed until a future year.
The Vision initiatives will still be bolstered somewhat in 2001 by the decision made by Annual Meeting last year to increase the amount of Basic Support retained for Conference programming from 35 to 40 percent. Annual Meeting delegates agreed to this change specifically to help fund the Vision, with the belief that if churches can be helped to grow and revitalize, they will be better able to contribute to the wider church in the future.