News from the Titanic

Episcopal Church Center Embraces, Praises 5-Year Plan
from Stand Firm by Greg Griffith


This is an email sent from Neva Rae Fox to the Episcopal Communicators list yesterday:

The Episcopal Church
Office of Public Affairs

The Episcopal Church Center feels the effects of the new budget

[August 5, 2009] The Episcopal Church Center has begun the process of implementing the staff reductions and program changes necessitated by the General Convention’s triennial budget.

The $141 million budget for 2010-2012 adopted by General Convention calls for cuts in most areas and results in staff reductions across program, canonical and corporate areas. Approximately 40 staff positions are being eliminated or will have hours reduced, affecting some 35 current employees. Staff members are being provided with resources and assistance, including outplacement services, and are being counseled individually regarding severance benefits. As individual circumstances differ, managers are conferring with each affected staff member to determine departure dates, between now and the end of the year.

In addition to layoffs, General Convention 2009 reduced most departmental budgets. The implications of these reductions are beginning to be analyzed. The Rev. Margaret Rose, director of the Mission Leadership Center, is convening a group that is considering how to reconfigure the program area. Another group will be considering how to foster internal collaboration with an eye to more focus on team and project-based work.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has challenged the staff to “rediscover the creative ability to innovate” as the budgetary realities are implemented. Questions of “what work will be done?” and “how will that work be accomplished” will be examined.

It is hoped that this time of great change and challenge will also be a time of reinventing and rebuilding.