 PCUSA publishing arm sends $13,500 in books to overseers By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, May 30, 2003
Each of the 55 members of the committee – including commissioners and advisory delegates – received a box of 16 books valued at roughly $250. The gifts were not mentioned in the 16-page report about PPC by the General Assembly Committee on Review. That review was mostly positive. The PPC gifts became public knowledge when one member of the committee on Pensions, Foundation and Publishing expressed thanks. But another committee member told Davis Perkins, the president of PPC, that the book gifts were inappropriate. And elder Nancy Lee Cochran of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh temporarily stepped down from her role as moderator of the committee to register her concern over PPC's gift packets. Perkins indicated that PPC had previously sent books to the committee that has oversight responsibility for his agency, which is financially independent of the Presbyterian Church (USA) but must fulfill some requirements by the General Assembly. PPC did not send boxes of books to all commissioners and advisory delegates. If it had, the retail value of the gift would have been roughly $187,500. The gift issue was not raised in the report by the Committee on Pensions, Foundation and Publishing to the full General Assembly. But David Lambertson, chairman of the review committee, told the commissioners, "We have found the Presbyterian publishing house to be in good order. They have indeed followed their mandate. They have been self-supporting. They have turned the corner in many places." The commissioners approved the review of PPC with slight editorial modification, and the full assembly approved that action in a voice vote. Much of the committee's report to the included brief comments by leaders of the PCUSA Board of Pensions, the Presbyterian Foundation and PPC. Robert W. Maggs Jr., chairman of the board of pensions, told the commissioners the pension-health benefit program is responsible for more than 50,000 people, including retirees. The assets of the board are more than $4 billion. Robert Leach, president and chief executive officer of the Presbyerian Foundation, said the corporation has assets of more than $1.5 billion and that it distributed more than $80 million in 2002 for ministries within the PCUSA. That distribution is the "largest amount by any church foundation in the USA," Leach said. "The bad news is that we could have used $80 million more. In addition, all that money came through the estates of deceased Presbyterians. How do we stack up against our deceased Presbyterian." Leach made a pitch for today's Presbyterians to show the same commitment to the church as those in the past." Perkins of the Presbyterian Publishing Corp. said PPC, which was created in 1993 and began with a $4-million debt, has had "positive net income in seven of nine years" and "today is debt-free." |
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