wfn.org | NCC gets a last-minute $400,000 reprieve

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Note #6275 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

21-November-2000
00419

NCC gets a last-minute $400,000 reprieve

Emergency grant from Methodists means council can keep its doors open

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE -- The finance agency of the United Methodist Church (UMC) has
voted to advance $400,000 to the National Council of Churches of Christ in
the USA (NCC) as part of an emergency funding package that will keep the
organization afloat.

	Before the Nov. 18 vote of the Methodists' General Council on Finance and
Administration (GCFA), the NCC's treasurer, Phil Young, had told reporters
that, if the Methodists chose not to advance the cash, the NCC's next task
would be planning a shutdown.

	That won't be necessary now.

	"My guess is that there will still be anxiety and frustration in the coming
six months," Young told the Presbyterian News Service (PNS). "But by Jan.
30, 2001, most of the anxiety and uncertainty will be behind us ...

	"We are currently operating well within budget," added Young, a
Presbyterian. "It is the mess of the prior management that we're trying to
clean up."

	Young said the UMC contribution will eliminate a "large hunk" of the NCC's
cash-flow problem. He noted that 60 percent of the organization's money
comes in the form of year-end contributions from its 36 member communions —
and said those dollars may increase the NCC's  predicted year-end surplus.

	The council has been plagued by financial problems for years.

	As a last-ditch remedy, its General Assembly opted last week to reorganize
its program areas and reduce the payroll by laying off 12 of 64 employees;
the layoffs began yesterday in New York.  The NCC's leadership contends that
this effort will enable the organization to end 2000 with a surplus of at
least $100,000.

	If the Methodists hadn't kicked in with this emergency money, the council
would have ended the year in the red, and would be, in Young's words,
"figur(ing) out how to shut it down."

	UMC assistant general secretary Steve Zekoff said the money is intended to
stabilize the organization, but he pointed out that it comes at 7 percent
interest, and the UMC will rebate the interest in full by 2004 if the NCC by
then has "positive net assets and a balanced operating budget."

	"It is a good-faith incentive," Zekoff said, referring to the NCC's
reorganization and belt-tightening. "At the end of the payback period, the
NCC will end up with a grant back to them to give them back the interest. It
is a win-win situation for them.

	"If they stabilize, they end up with extra money."

	The UMC authorized the cash with virtually no debate after two bishops with
ecumenical responsibilities urged the GCFA to continue supporting the NCC.

	Robert Edgar, the NCC's president, said the NCC is stabilizing after months
of uncertainty. At this time last year, he told the PNS, the council faced a
debt of $5.9 million and had no systems in place to control spending.

	Edgar also said that tension between the council and its relief arm, Church
World Service and Witness, has eased because the two bodies are now fiscally
separate.  Further, he said the council has a "clarity of purpose that was
not here one year ago."

	Half of the NCC's operating budget comes from the UMC and the PC(USA). Just
last September, the PC(USA)'s General Assembly Council authorized a $400,000
emergency grant to the NCC, over and above the denomination's annual
contributions, so that the council would have enough cash to operate.

	After months of forecasting doom and gloom should the PCUSA or the UMC fail
to come up with extra cash, Young was sounding uncharacteristically
optimistic.

	  "We'll end this year with money in hand," he said. "We'll begin 2001 with
the capacity to meet our responsibilities."

	The NCC has approved a budget of more than $3 million for the first six
months of 2001.

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