wfn.org | Goff Resigns as CAS Director

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23-December-1996 
 
96503              Goff Resigns as Cas Director 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--G.A. "Pat" Goff, has resigned as director of Corporate and 
Administrative Services (CAS) of the General Assembly, ending a five-year 
tenure marked by massive organizational changes in the national structures 
of the Presbyterian Church and occasionally vociferous public disputes over 
his role in those changes. 
 
     Goff's  resignation, effective Dec. 20, comes as General Assembly 
Council (GAC) officials scramble to implement a computer software system 
they hope will solve accounting problems and prevent the church from 
receiving a "qualified" audit of the its 1996 financial records. 
 
     "A qualified audit (citing formal exceptions to some accounting 
practices) would be devastating," GAC interim executive director the Rev. 
Frank Diaz told the Presbyterian News Service. 
 
     On November 14, Diaz relieved Goff and his top aide, associate 
treasurer Michael Tronzo, of their responsibilities for  implementation of 
the Presbyterian Information Management System (PIMS), an accounting system 
that was supposed to track all receipts for the General Assembly Mission 
Budget. 
 
     Diaz announced that the PIMS system, which Goff and Tronzo had 
strongly advocated, would be scrapped and receipts accounting would be 
transferred to the GAC's Lawson accounting system, which is already being 
used to track General Assembly expenses. 
 
     Diaz said his actions were not prompted by any financial wrongdoing. 
GAC officials became concerned, however, when 10 months into 1996, PIMS was 
still not able to produce financial records clearly showing how much money 
individual presbyteries had given to the General Assembly Mission Budget. 
 
     Goff told the Presbyterian News Service that the situation was "like 
having a whole pile of receipts but no bank statement telling you what the 
account balance is."  He said every donation "has been receipted and all 
cash has gone into the bank -- the problem is with the management reports." 
 
     Goff insisted that he had kept the CAS committee apprised of the 
problems with PIMS and added that the dispute over whether PIMS or Lawson 
is the best accounting system for the Presbyterian Church is "a difference 
of opinion." 
 
     The PIMS snafu is the latest, but not only, stormy chapter in Goff's 
tenure, which began in May of 1991.  A Presbyterian elder who worked as an 
executive for power and light companies in Mississippi and Wisconsin before 
joining the Presbyterian Church's national staff, Goff came to Louisville 
as president of the Central Treasury Corporation and treasurer of the 
Presbyterian Church just prior to a turnover in administrations.   
 
     S. David Stoner, who was retiring as GAC executive director when Goff 
arrived, was succeeded by the Rev. James D. Brown in June of 1992.  By the 
fall of that year, financial crises precipitated a major restructuring of 
the General Assembly organization known as "shape and form." 
 
     By April of 1993 the restructuring was complete and at the 1993 
General Assembly Goff was installed for a four-year term as director of 
Corporate and Administrative Services.  The turmoil of the "shape and form" 
restructuring meant that for the remainder of his tenure Goff was a central 
figure in a number of internal organizational struggles and at least two 
highly publicized disputes with other General Assembly-related entities -- 
the Presbyterian Foundation and the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. 
 
     The acrimony of those squabbles contributed in part to the 1996 
Assembly's refusal to confirm Brown for a second four-year term as 
executive director.  Also, the GAC and the Assembly each approved 
management studies of the executive director's office and CAS operations. 
The results of those studies would have been factored into Goff's 
end-of-term review.  His current term was to have expired in June of 1997. 
 
     Shortly before Goff's resignation, Diaz announced that Tronzo's 
position had been  eliminated. All accounting functions -- receipts and 
disbursements -- have been consolidated in the office of the controller, 
Nagy Tawfik.   
 
     Diaz also announced his appointment of Robert McKee as acting CAS 
director.  McKee, a retired banker, is currently interim associate director 
for evangelism and church development in the National Ministries Division. 
The GAC will appoint a search committee for a new director at its meeting 
in early February. 
 
     In a Dec. 20 letter to GAC members and staff at the Presbyterian 
Center announcing Goff's resignation, Diaz and GAC chair Youngil Cho 
praised Goff for his "significant contributions to the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.) and his leadership" which they said "will be missed in many ways." 
 
     Cho told the Presbyterian News Service in a Dec. 23 telephone 
interview that "Pat contributed his skill during downsizing and reduced 
mission giving and we are very grateful for that."  But, he added, 
"management always needs new blood and God is always looking for new 
vision." 
 
     Cho said "the money used for Presbyterian mission around the world is 
God's money and Presbyterian people's gifts -- we owe it to God and to 
those people to be always looking for the best ways to manage their gifts." 

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