wfn.org | New Chief Says He Has "Stopped the Hemorrhaging" at NCC

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

19-February-2000 
00084 
 
    New Chief Says He Has "Stopped the Hemorrhaging" at NCC 
 
    Edgar says council will focus on world's children 
 
    by John Filiatreau 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Former U.S. Representative Robert W. Edgar, the new 
general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A. (NCC), came to the meeting of the General Assembly Council to say 
that he has "stopped the hemorrhaging" at the 50-year-old ecumenical 
organization and has begun installing safeguards to ensure "that the money 
is used responsibly." 
 
    Edgar, 56, is an ordained United Methodist minister who came to the NCC 
from the Claremont School of Theology in California, where he served as 
president for 10 years. 
 
    He said his assignment at the NCC is not unlike the situation he faced 
when he arrived at Claremont, which he said was "just a hiccup away from 
going out of business," reeling from "two embezzlements" and having "no 
money for salaries."  During the 10 years that he was at the helm, Edgar 
said, the school's endowment increased from $3.8 million to $25 million, 
enrollment climbed from 300 to 550, and the institution became "the most 
ecumenical of the Methodist seminaries," with students representing more 
than 30 Christian denominations. 
 
    He said he has the expertise in "financial and administrative issues" 
to clear up the "chaos" he found at the NCC. 
 
    As general secretary (a salaried position equivalent to that of chief 
executive officer), Edgar shares leadership in the NCC with former U.N. 
ambassador Andrew Young, who was installed last Nov. 11 to serve as NCC 
president (a non-salaried post) through the year 2001.  Edgar and Young 
served overlapping terms in Congress, participating together in the Clergy 
Caucus (Young is a United Church of Christ minister). 
 
    The NCC, the nation's largest ecumenical organization with 35 member 
communions having more than 50 million congregants, has an annual budget of 
about $60 million. 
 
    Edgar said he plans to launch a resources development program for the 
NCC "similar to what I've done at Claremont," and to ask the Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.) Foundation to manage its endowment.  "I look with some awe 
at what the Presbyterians have done," he said.  "We would be a client of 
the Presbyterian Foundation, because your foundation has the best 
reputation. 
 
    "After 50 years, the NCC should have an endowment of at least $100 
million." 
 
    Edgar said the NCC got into financial trouble because it was "not very 
systematized or organized" and was "coasting on a 1950s reputation."  He 
said it didn't have "a very good identity or clarity about our work," and 
did a poor job of "paper oversight." 
 
    Since his arrival, Edgar said, "there are no limousines picking people 
up and taking them to the airport," and no longer are corporate credit 
cards being used in questionable ways.  He said he found that $197,000 had 
been paid over three years in pension payments for people no longer on the 
payroll.  And, he added, one staff member had $38,000 in debts on a credit 
card and hadn't bothered to keep receipts. 
 
    "Was it legal?  Yes," he said.  "Was it fraud?  Noooo.  Was it smart? 
No!" 
 
    Edgar said "about nine" NCC employees have been dismissed and that 18 
other positions have not been filled. 
 
    "About every 50 years, organizations probably should be renovated 
whether they need it or not," he said. 
 
    "One of its biggest problems," he said of the NCC, "is that it's for 
everything - and the member communions help us to be for everything." 
 
    In the next 18 months, he said, the council will focus on children in 
order to "clear away the fuzziness" about the image and role of the 
organization. 
 
    "We're going to shape everything we do as it is reflected in and about 
children," he said.  "If we talk about hunger, we'll talk about children 
and hunger.  If we talk about war, we'll talk about how war affects 
children." 

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