wfn.org | Board of Pension to send statements out in July

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

April 26, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{223}

CHICAGO (UMNS) - Clergy members and employees of the United Methodist Church
can expect to receive their pension statements this summer, for the first
time in more than a year.

The denomination's Board of Pension and Health Benefits will send the
year-end 1998 statements out in July, said Barbara Boigegrain, top staff
executive of the Evanston, Ill.,-based agency. The statement for the first
six months of 1999 will be sent out by the end of September.

"We hope by the end of the third quarter that we'll have the statements
going out quarterly," Boigegrain said.

A sense of light at the end of the tunnel could clearly be felt at the April
23-24 meeting of the agency's board of directors in Skokie, Ill. The agency
manages the pension and health benefits for some 65,000 United Methodist
clergy members, employees, retirees and spouses.

The board has been working through a turnaround in recent years. It has
undergone a conversion of its computer systems, and much of its time and
energy have been focused on working through a backlog of account information
and addressing customer service issues. 

At their meeting, the directors took a major step by deciding to apply a
"global fix" to all accounts. That will involve systematically analyzing
participants' accounts, then making adjustments to contributions as
necessary to make the accounts line up with the underlying data that the
board has on the participants. The adjustments would be for 1998 and part of
1999, up to the date of the fix. That approach "would broadly resolve 1998
and existing 1999 account issues," the board stated in the resolution.

"One of the important implications of this decision is when the statements
are sent, we will have assurances that they are correct," said Bishop Bruce
Blake, president of the board, after the directors' April 24 plenary
session. "This has been the goal of the board: to submit only accurate
information to participants."

The statements will be accurate based on the information that the board has,
Boigegrain added. That information comes primarily from conferences and
churches.

"We are becoming increasingly clear that we need to identify and implement
methods of appropriate and timely data management, and this carries
throughout the denomination - at the local church level, at the conference
level and at the general agency level," Boigegrain said.

The cost of the global fix is uncertain at this point, agency officials
said.

During the board's public forum, the Rev. William C. Wyman, a Western North
Carolina Annual Conference officer, stressed the need for accurate
statements.

"Without accurate statements, it is virtually impossible for our
participants to be able to make what they consider good investment
judgments," he said. He urged the directors to use their resources to
correct the agency's problems.

Blake assured Wyman that the directors understood and shared the concerns
and frustrations of participants who hadn't received their statements, and
that those problems were being addressed. He also said the agency's problems
"have in no way jeopardized participant funds."

Boigegrain later told United Methodist News Service that the board's call
center staff has been beefed up with the recent addition of seven people,
bringing the total to 27. After going through a period of downsizing in
recent years, the agency's total payroll is at about 220 to 230 employees,
and Boigegrain said it will remain at that level.

While the board has been working through its process problems, its
investments have continued to perform well. During the board's April 24
session, investment committee Chairman John English reported on the strong
performance of the domestic and international stock funds.

"I think sometimes the General Board ought to dissolve and go into the
mutual fund business, because we would at least be five stars with
Morningstar," he said, referring to the top rating company of the mutual
fund industry.

The board's Diversified Investment Fund, which represents its largest pool
of dollars, has had a total return of 2.6 percent so far this year, as of
March 25, well above the 1.7 percent industry benchmark. Its domestic stocks
were up 3.6 percent, compared with a benchmark of 3.4 percent; international
stocks were up 4.9 percent, against a benchmark of 0.4 percent; and its
fixed-income investments were down 0.7 percent, compared with the benchmark
of a 0.5 percent decrease.

For the year ended Dec. 31, the Diversified Investment Fund had a compounded
annual return of 18.2 percent, placing it in the top 11 percentile of all
comparable funds.

For the year ended Dec. 31, the domestic stocks had a compounded annual
return of 24.9 percent, placing them in the top 17 percentile. The
international stocks' return was 20.3 percent for the same period, landing
them in the top 7 percentile.

In the board's Personal Investment Plan (PIP), domestic stocks were up 9.28
percent and the international equities were up 14.71 for the year to date,
said Treasurer F. Gale Whitson-Schmidt.

The board approved a resolution to allow retired clergy and lay employees to
roll over or transfer up to 25 percent of their Ministerial Pension Plan
distributions and up to 100 percent of their Cumulative Pension and Benefit
Fund and Staff Retirement Benefit Fund distributions to the PIP. In
addition, 403(b) pension savings account dollars that are invested with
other financial organizations also may be rolled over into the PIP.

In other business, the board:

*	Presented the Charles L. Calkins Award to the Rev. Richard M.
Hamilton of Scarborough, Maine. Hamilton, who retired in 1996, is a former
pastor and district superintendent, and was pension officer for the former
Maine Annual Conference. He became chairman of the board of pension of the
New England Annual Conference from 1994 to 1998 and still serves on the
board. The award recognizes leadership in pension and benefits
administration. It is named for Charles L. Calkins, former top staff
executive and board employee from 1938 to 1964.

*	Heard an update on Year 2000-related work with the computer systems.
"Significant progress is being made in this area with our staff on being
ready for the Year 2000," said Mary Miller, chairwoman of the computer
resources task force. The agency is in touch with its outside business
partners and developing contingency plans to ensure that all of its services
continue if there are minor problems with the Y2K bug, she said.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is being used as an outside consultant, she said.

*	Approved a defined benefit annuity reserve special distribution to
participating groups - namely, annual conferences. The amount is based on
the average of each group's funded portion of the reserve for the 1998
calendar year. A total of $85.3 million will be distributed.
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