Providing pension benefits to the lay church employees was a matter of justice that has been too long delayed, the Bishop of New Hampshire told members of the House of Bishops on the fourth legislative day of the 76th General Convention in Anaheim, Calif.

Rising to address the house following the introduction of Resolution A138: Establishing a mandatory lay employee pension system, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson said that as a member of the board of trustees of the Church Pension Fund (CPF) he could report that it had done due diligence in investigating the fiduciary implications of providing pensions to lay church employees who worked more than 20 hours a week.

“I can attest to you that the best resources and best people” at the CPF had been working on this plan, Bishop Robinson told the House.

However, the need to pay was independent of the ability to pay, Bishop Robinson said.
The lay pension program requires the church, its congregations and affiliated institutions to provide pension benefits to lay employees working more than 1,000 hours per year. 
The employees could chose a defined benefit plan, which would vest after five years and would be portable within the Episcopal Church, or a defined contribution plan which would, according to the plan chosen by the diocese, vest immediately, or up to five years after the start of employment, and would be fully portable. 

The plan would be mandatory, the Rt. Rev Gayle Harris, Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts and chairman of the Church Pension Fund committee at General Convention, told the house. Parishes would not be unduly burdened by the costs of the new benefit, which she said would be $20.80 per pledge unit per year.

The Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, retired Bishop of Maine, urged adoption of the resolution.  This was a “matter of justice and a matter of the health of the soul of the church,” she said.

However, the Bishop of Springfield, the Rt. Rev. Peter Beckwith, questioned the mandatory provisions of the resolution, stating the “feedback” he had had from his diocese was that there were “a number of people who don’t want or don’t need” this plan.

“If enacted,” he said, this “will cause heartburn and difficulties” for small parishes, and would serve to drive down lay wages.  The additional costs would lead some churches to reduce the hours worked of their employees below the threshold of 1,000 hours, or lead to layoffs.

“The concept is great,” Bishop Beckwith said, “but to make it mandatory will cause injustice.”

The Rt. Rev. Claude Payne, retired Bishop of Texas and member of trustee of the CPF said “this was the best we could come up with,” and spoke of his own secretary, now in her 90s, who had no pension benefits from the church following a lifetime of service.

Denying pension benefits to lay employees was racist, the Rt. Rev. Nathan Baxter of Central Pennsylvania observed, noting that many sextons and church workers were African-Americans and often left a life time of service to a church or school with “a handshake or a purse.”

The Assistant Bishop of California, the Rt. Rev. Stephen Charleston, reminded the House that his own service to the Episcopal Church began as a lay assistant to former President Bishop John Hines.  Those years were not credited to his clergy pension and as retirement approached, he was conscious of their loss to his finances.

The Rt. Rev. Peter Lee, retired Bishop of Virginia, told the house that offering pension benefits to the church’s lay employees was a  natural “consequence of the Baptismal theology adopted by the Episcopal Church in the 1979 Prayer Book.”

However, the Bishop of Albany, the Rt. Rev. William Love pressed the committee on the point of portability, saying it not all church secretaries spent their entire careers within the Episcopal Church.  Without portability of benefits, church workers would be “short changed,” with the CPF keeping funds set aside, but not yet vested.  The Bishop of the American Convocation of Churches in Europe, the Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon rose also to voice concerns about portability.

The Bishop of Oklahoma, the Rt. Rev. Edward J. Konieczny, a member of the CPF trustees, sought to reassure the House on this point, and the resolution was adopted on a voice vote with five voices in opposition.

(The Rev.) George Conger  reporting from General Convention in Anaheim.
 
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