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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodist News |
September 2002 |
Letter Spotlight:
In protest of non-payment of apportionments
By Neal Thomas
I write to protest the acceptance of non-payment of apportionments implied in the method used to calculate the CFA budget for 2003. The assumption that only 90 percent of apportionments will be paid and that as a consequence all apportionments will be raised an equivalent amount to make up for this deficit smacks of Enron accounting.
I'm from an older tradition of the church, I know. On Monday of conference week I rode the tractor most of the day helping plant soybeans, and I went back home to put up hay for my cattle. That was a very common thing for lay members of the conference a generation ago, but it is rare today. Apparently also becoming rare is my generation's acceptance of the paying of 100 percent of our conference apportionments as a sacred duty, an obligation for which we will sacrifice needed maintenance to our building, materials for our programs, or degrees on our thermostat.
One out of four of our conference churches did not pay 100 percent of conference apportionments in 2001 and apparently that is being acknowledged and accepted as the new standard by our accountants. My generation recognizes that special circumstances can cause individual congregations to be unable to pay their share for a time, and we willingly accept the need to pay extra to keep the programs of the conference operating when that happens. But we resent those churches who regard the paying of apportionments as optional, and we deeply resent having to subsidize them as they shirk their duty year after year.
My county, Spencer, is often disparaged because it is southern, rural and presumed to be backward, yet an amount equal to the entire conference apportionments paid by my county would not pay the combined arrearages of the two largest churches in Monroe County or the single largest in Hamilton County. Now we are being asked for a double digit percentage increase in our apportionments because of changing attitudes and accounting procedures which seem to imply that paying apportionments is optional. When I must share such news with my parish, I expect our giving may go down - not up.
I don't have a solution to the problem, but if we accept non-payment of apportionments as normal then our conference programs are doomed.
Last updated on 01/14/2004Neal Thomas is a lay member of South Indiana Conference, representing the Richland/Midway Charge.