United Church of God, an International Association
Council of Elders Videoconference

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Chairman Robin Webber called the afternoon Web-Ex meeting to order at 4:30 p.m. EDT. After the opening prayer, he asked for short reports from various Council members, especially those who traveled internationally during the Passover season. The locations included Latin America and West Africa. After this the business portion of the meeting proceeded.

President Selection Process

Gary Antion, as chairman of the Roles and Rules Committee (which oversees the presidential selection process), reported on the next steps in the selection of a new president. Reviewing the procedures, he informed the Council that they will shortly receive the write-ups on the 13 presidential nominees. He asked the Council members to form their short list of nominees by April 22. From the short lists will come the combined short list of nominees who will be interviewed by the Council. The interviews will take place on May 6 with the final balloting for the new president of UCG taking place on May 8. Then Mr. Antion proposed a choice of two procedural details to facilitate the process, and the Council unanimously selected the one that the Roles and Rules Committee recommended.

Discretionary Retirement Assistance Policy Survey

Treasurer Aaron Dean next presented the need for the considered review of our discretionary assistance retirement policy and gave a list of survey questions for the Council to consider during the May and especially the August meetings.

In the presentation he explained the current policy of discretionary retirement assistance regarding the rate as compared to the number of years working for the Church.

Since the 403b matching-funds program had to be temporarily discontinued during the recent budget changes, he explained how this affected retirement savings. Some questions addressed the situation of those few who do not qualify for Medicare. Some questions addressed the situations of newer employees who were considerably older when entering the ministry and have different backgrounds than those with a lifetime career from the time of their Ambassador College graduation. Some questions addressed the circumstances of our non-ministerial employees.

A second set of questions for the Council to consider concerned widows’ assistance when the Church employee spouse dies. The current policy provides guidelines, but some aspects need clearer definition. Other survey questions addressed life insurance coverage issues and possible relocation of widows to be nearer family members. The desire is always to fulfill our biblical responsibility to our employees and widows in an appropriate and reasonable manner.

The Council asked for various points of clarification to make sure they understood the requests from Human Resources. Then Mr. Dean and HR director Chris Rowland explained that Council input will help focus policy development, and suggested an ad hoc committee be formed to digest the input and make recommendations. Mr. Dean stressed again that the list of questions was given preparatory to an actual Council review in the May or August meeting.

Mr. Dean commented that there are many variables in circumstance that the Council will need to consider in further development of the policy, and he encouraged the Council members to make their comments about the questions on the surveys and return them to him and Chris Rowland to collate for the next discussion of the topic at a future meeting.

The Council then entered executive session to discuss several agenda items. After reentering open session, the meeting ended at approximately 7:00 p.m.

-end-

Randy Stiver

Council Reporter

© 2013 United Church of God, an International Association