wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Assembly approves Westminster Gardens transfer

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Note #7800 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Assembly approves Westminster Gardens transfer
GA03111

Assembly approves Westminster Gardens transfer

by Jerry L. Van Marter

DENVER, May 29 - With virtually its entire slate of business on the consent
agenda, the Assembly Committee on Pensions, Foundation and Publishing
probably made the quietest report heard by the 215th General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (USA).

	The only items that occasioned debate concerned the relationship
between the Board of Pensions (BOP) and Westminster Gardens, a retirement
facility for retired Presbyterian missionaries and other church workers in
Duarte, CA.

	Westminster Gardens was purchased by the former Presbyterian Board of
Foreign Mission in 1948, with a $1 million gift from Frank M.S. Shu. "General
supervision" of the facility was transferred to the BOP in 1975.

	With the BOP getting out of the retirement-home business in recent
years, conversations have gone on between the BOP and the staff and trustees
of Westminster Gardens about transferring management to some other entity.

	The board has reached agreement with Westminster Gardens and Southern
California Presbyterian Homes for the latter to assume supervision of the
facility.

	The transfer means that Westminster Gardens' residents will have to
pay more. Commissioners sought assurances that the BOP will do all it can
through its Assistance programs to help the residents cope with the rising
rates.

	The Assembly also approved a review of the Presbyterian Publishing
Corporation (PPC), praising the PC(USA)'s publishing arm for "faithfully
carrying out its mandate through Westminster John Knox Press and Geneva Press
imprints to serve the educational and theological needs of the PC(USA) and a
wider audience."

	PPC was created 10 years ago as an independent corporation in a
restructuring of the denomination's agencies. One of its mandates was to
attain financial self-sufficiency. "Almost miraculously," said David Perkins,
PPC's chief executive officer, "we have shown a positive bottom line eight of
the last nine years."

	The Assembly asked PPC to work with other resource-producing agencies
at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville to seek ways to coordinate
publishing efforts, particularly in the areas of product ordering and
distribution services.

	The Assembly approved the continued promotion of New Covenant Funds,
the mutual -funds arm of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Foundation. New
Covenant was founded in 1998 as the first nationally chartered trust company
owned by a not-for-profit foundation.

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