NEWS STORY: Church council begins radical restructuring, backs public education

c. 1999 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ The National Council of Churches, facing one of the worst financial and management crises in its 50-year history, agreed Thursday (Nov. 11) to begin a radical restructuring of the agency that could see the country’s leading ecumenical agency trim its staff by as much as a third. Many […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The National Council of Churches, facing one of the worst financial and management crises in its 50-year history, agreed Thursday (Nov. 11) to begin a radical restructuring of the agency that could see the country’s leading ecumenical agency trim its staff by as much as a third.

Many of the details of the proposal are still to be worked out, including how the NCC’s largest and most popular unit, Church World Service, will relate to what is left of the council’s headquarters operation.


A separate negotiating team of NCC and CWS officials is developing a plan to keep CWS, the overseas relief and development agency, in the council but with far more autonomy, especially over its finances.

Council officials say the restructuring plan is so complex and fluid that no budget for the year 2000 has yet been developed.

“Our work is not completed and much of it will be handed over to new leadership,” Episcopal Bishop Craig Anderson, the ecumenical agency’s outgoing president, told the executive committee.

His reference was to the new administration of the Rev. Robert Edgar, who is set to be formally voted in as the council’s next general secretary Friday. Edgar, a United Methodist and currently president of the Claremont School of Theology, will take office in January.

Under the proposal, two new positions will be created _ a deputy general secretary, who will oversee a new department of “unity and justice,” which will consolidate most of the council’s program activities; and a new general manager, who will be charge of the council’s personnel and financial management.

The plan envisions the elimination of as many as 34 positions, including a number of top executive positions such as the associate general secretary for Christian unity, the associate general secretary for inclusiveness and justice, the deputy general secretary for national ministries and two racial justice coordinators. Seven of the proposed cuts are currently vacant and one _ a speech editor for the general secretary _ is being filled by an independent contractor.

The cuts do not affect Church World Service.

The timeline for implementing any dismissals or re-assignments was left to Edgar and his incoming management team.


While the crisis has been building for a number of years, it was brought to a head by a 1999 shortfall of nearly $4 million of unanticipated but approved expenses. The shortfall resulted from $2.4 million the council paid in consulting fees since March 1998, a one-time contribution of about $500,000 to the NCC’s pension fund due to a missed payment several years ago, a misallocation of $350,000 from the Burned Churches Fund to the council’s racial justice program which must be restored, and a small over-expenditure in the general secretary’s budget for the year.

Efforts to cover the shortfall by an emergency appeal to the churches have been met with resistance, especially by the large mainline denominations, such as the United Methodist Church, which wants to be assured adequate financial controls and management are in place.

Yet another obstacle to restoring confidence in the agency, however, came when NCC treasurer Margaret Thomas reported that despite assurances to the contrary from staff, the 50th anniversary celebration this week will run a deficit of between $50,000 and $150,000. The celebration is costing about $750,000.

“As you know,” Thomas told the executive board Wednesday, “few issues have been as hotly debated recently than the cost of this celebration and our insistence that there be no deficit. Unfortunately, we received significantly different projections last Friday (Nov. 5), than we have received as recently as the last week in October.”

John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, expressing a view widely shared by executive committee members, responded, “I’m not surprised by this news, but I’m profoundly disappointed and angry.”

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, stepping down as general secretary of the council and a target of much of the criticism for the NCC’s financial difficulties, defended her tenure in her final report to the General Assembly, the NCC’s highest policy-making body.


“I value courage and imagination rather than efficiency and caution,” she said. “And sometimes that has gotten us in deep water but perhaps it was the right water to be in.”

In other action Thursday, the council’s General Assembly approved a policy statement committing the NCC to renewed efforts to support public education.

Meeting at ground zero in the legal and political battle over proposals to provide taxpayer-financed vouchers to send poor children to private schools,including religious institutions, the council said “the voices of our churches have been largely absent from the ongoing debate about the meaning and future of our nation’s schools.”

Cleveland’s voucher program, which has attracted some 4,000 applicants, is the target of a federal lawsuit by civil liberties and church-state groups who say it violates the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court last week overrode a federal judge’s order temporarily barring new students from participating in the program, but did not address the constitutionality of the program.

The council, in its new policy statement, acknowledged and affirmed the contribution of private schools to the welfare of the children. But it said the public schools remain the “primary route for most children _ especially the children of poverty _ into full participation in our economic, political, and community life.”

The NCC also acknowledged the debate within the its 35 member denominations _ Protestant, Anglican-Episcopal and Orthodox Christian _ over whether public funds should be used to remedy what it called “the lingering effects of racial injustice” in the nation’s educational system.


“We do not purport to resolve our differences over this issue, but we do affirm our conviction that, as a general rule, public funds should be used for public purposes,” it said. “We also caution that government aid to primary and secondary schools raises constitutional problems and could undermine the school’s independence and/or compromise their religious message.”

It said the long-range solution is to improve public schools so families will not be forced to seek other educational alternatives.

In urging local churches to become involved in supporting public schools, the council embraced a laundry list of education reforms, including smaller classes, emphasizing books and literacy, speaking out on behalf of academic freedom and encouraging the use of curricula that reflect the nation’s racial and ethnic diversity.

IR END ANDERSON

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