Upon recommendation of the General Assembly Council, the 209th General Assembly (1997) approved “the appointment of a task [force] of fifteen persons for the purpose of reviewing the ‘Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Churchwide Compensation Policy Guidelines’.” (Minutes, 1997, p. 212).

This task force worked for two years, held consultations in the church, and consulted with General Assembly Committees and Entities, before bringing reports to the 210th General Assembly (1998) and the 211th General Assembly (1999). Those reports included a set of Principles of Compensation and Churchwide Compensation Policy Guidelines that the Agency has followed faithfully for more than 25 years.

The General Assembly elects all members of the Agency’s Board of Directors and that Board of Directors is responsible for ensuring compensation is reasonable at all levels of the organization. Principle Eleven of the guidelines talks specifically about gathering and evaluating comparable salary “data from other national church organizations, including pension boards and foundations, academic institutions, the publishing field, pastors’ salaries, and other sources as deemed appropriate by the elected bodies of the entities or the employing organization.” The Board of Directors does this through consultants, both periodically to ensure the reasonableness of staff salaries broadly in the marketplace and annually to assess executive compensation. 

These surveys consider the complexity of the Agency’s work and the scope of its plans and programs. Administering these plans and programs requires the Agency to employ experts in finance, investment, information technology, law, benefits plan design and administration, customer service, communications, and relationship management. When hiring, the Agency competes for talent in the Washington, D.C.-Philadelphia-New York City-Boston metroplex, competing for talent against for-profit companies, other not-for-profits, academic institutions, and government entities. The professional oversight of these experts is vital in driving the success of the Agency, which oversees total assets of approximately $14.5 billion, collects medical dues and pays annual medical claims in excess of $240 million, and collects $58 million annually in pension and death and disability dues while paying pension, death, and disability benefits of $506 million.

Based on the data resulting from these surveys, the Board of Directors establishes salary ranges for staff and fixes the salaries of executives. 

Standing Rule 4.A.7 says that “Recommendations for action in particular should show the ways in which the entity has been coordinating its work and consulting with other entities of the assembly and councils of the church.” 

No consultation was held with the Agency before this item appeared on PC-Biz.

For the foregoing reasons, the Agency respectfully encourages the General Assembly to answer this recommendation by reaffirming the Churchwide Compensation Policy Guidelines approved by the 211th General Assembly (1999) and reaffirmed by the 214th General Assembly (2002).