The Task Force on Reimagining the Episcopal Church (TREC) has issued a study paper that incorporates three alternatives for restructuring the Church's governing bodies. This is fodder for the recommendations TREC will make at General Convention. I've tried to merge the ideas in the three alternatives into the alternative appended below.
1. The Executive Council is very large to be the Board of Directors
of the Church’s legal entity. On the
other hand, the Executive Council is probably the right size as the program
leadership for the Church. One way to
resolve this dilemma is to designate a smaller body as the Board of
Directors. One suggestion is to have a
Board composed of the Presiding Bishop as Chair, the President of House of
Deputies (PHoD) as Vice Chair, and five members of Executive Council elected by
Executive Council. The DFMS CEO/COO/General Secretary, DFMS Secretary, DFMS
Treasurer, and possibly the Chancellor would be ex officio. State
Corporation codes provide a litany of responsibilities that would be assumed by
the Board, but the rest of Executive Council would be spared them.
2. Since the Board would be tightly coupled through common
membership with Executive Council, Council’s decisions regarding oversight of
programs would be informed by Board decisions.
There would have to be a defined separation of responsibilities,
especially with regard to finances since the Board would have State-defined
fiduciary responsibilities.
3. Assuming New York law is similar to California’s, the
Corporation (DFMS) will require a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and
Treasurer, who need not be members of the Board of Directors. Alternative I presents a simple approach, but
perhaps it might be more effective if the CEO/COO (or General Secretary if that
seems a more comfortable term reflecting our Anglican heritage) were the DFMS
President, a senior program officer were the DFMS Vice President, the Secretary
of General Convention/Secretary of Executive Council were the DFMS Secretary,
and the CFO were the DFMS Treasurer. ( Actually, I have some potential conflict-of-interest reservations about
the CFO as Treasurer.)
4. The CEO/COO/General Secretary would report to the Board.
5. As to Executive Council,
1. The Presiding Bishop (PB) would be the chair of Council.
2. The President of the House of Deputies (PHOD) would be vice
chair of Council.
3. The Executive Council would
have an Executive Committee. For
simplicity, I suggest the members of the Executive Committee be the members of
the Board of Trustees.
4. The CEO/COO/General Secretary would be selected, evaluated, and
if justified by evaluation terminated by the Executive Committee, subject to
ratification by the Executive Council.
5. In its interim role between General Conventions, the Executive
Council would interpret policy and oversee the implementation of policy by DFMS
staff and throughout the Church.
Executive Council should know what is going on, apply corrective
guidance as needed, but not take on operational duties.
6.
Thought needs to be
given to the shifting responsibilities of Executive Council. I suppose it depends on one’s vision of how
the national and international aspects of our ministry and mission are to be
accomplished. There seems to be an
assumption that this work will be accomplished through networks. I foresee two kinds of networks, some legitimized by General Convention of Executive Council and operating within the Church structure and some operating autonomously outside the structure. The discussion here includes the former and ignores the latter. If a network is part of the formal structure, then Executive Council has an oversight role through
subcommittees or individual members serving as liaisons.
6. All employees would be employees of DFMS, subject to the
personnel policies and practices of DFMS.
In general, unless specifically excepted, the hiring and firing of
employees would be the responsibility of the CEO/COO/General Secretary. Exceptions would include the Presiding
Bishop’s staff assisting with the Presiding Bishop’s pastoral and prophetic duties,
certain positions for which hiring and firing decisions are reserved to General
Convention or Executive Council, or delegated by General Convention to other
bodies reporting to General Convention, such as General Convention Secretary
and that office’s staff, the Archives staff, the PHoD's assistant, and the
staff of the General Board of Examining Chaplains. The TREC Study Report states, “The
canons must be changed to provide consistency.” They canons should also provide
visibility of responsibilities.
7. The CEO/COO/General Secretary would be a confirmed Episcopalian
in good standing and could be a layperson, deacon, priest, or bishop. The appointment of a CEO/COO/General
Secretary by the Executive Committee of Executive Council would remove the CEO
role from the Presiding Bishop, freeing her/him to focus on the other
leadership, pastoral, and prophetic roles of the office.
8.
Significant
initiatives, including employee and human resource initiatives, such as restructurings, would be presented to the Executive
Committee by the CEO/COO/General Secretary for their review and concurrence.
9. Routine day-to-day operations would be the responsibility of the
CEO/COO/General Secretary and his/her senior management team subject to
appropriate policy (non-micro-managing) oversight by the Executive Committee
and Council.
10.
Although the
organization of DFMS would be the responsibility of the CED/COO/General
Secretary, I would expect the senior management team to be small, consisting,
for example, of a VP for Ministry and Mission, a CFO, and Directors of Strategic Planning, Communication and Information Technology, and Administration and Human Resources.
A conceptual Table
of Organization might be:
Executive
Committee/Board of Directors
Secretary, Treasurer,
Chancellor
CEO/COO/General Secretary
VP Programs
Director for Prophetic
Witness and Social Justice
Manager for Network
Liaison
Manager for
Public Policy and Governmental Relations
Director for Anglican
and International Relationships
Director for Ecumenical
and Interfaith Relationships
Director for Evangelism
Director of Research
Manager of
Research
Manager for
the State of the Church Reports
CFO
Controller
Financial operations
managers
Director of Strategic Planning
Director of Communication and
Information Technology
Manager of
Content/Message Development and Admin
Manager of Website and
Social Media Design and Admin
Manager of Information
Technology and Cognition
Manager for Diocesan and
Network Consultation
Director of Administration and Human
Resources
Manager of Administration
Human Resources Manager
Manager for Volunteer
Resources
11. Commissions, Committees, Agencies, and Boards
This
is a good time for rethinking all the CCABs.
Which ones are necessary? In
general, these are Boards that have well-specified responsibilities and the
Standing Commissions noted in Alternative 3. To whom should these remaining CCAB’s
report? They certainly should be in
frequent communication with Executive Council, perhaps via a leadership
network.
The House of Bishops and House of Deputies
Committees appear to be aligned to the needs of the Bishops and the House of
Deputies leadership.
What about CCABs
whose area of endeavor falls under the general rubric of programmatic ministry
and mission? Generally speaking, these
groups have been established by General Convention in response to issues
identified in Resolutions or by Executive Council. If one adopts the notion that less formal
networks and targeted task forces are the way to pursue programmatic ministry
and mission, then these the topical committees and commissions should be
terminated.
The existence of any
given topical network would depend on the emergence of a group of Episcopalians
with a passion for acting on an issue or issues within the topic area. For
legitimacy within the Church, each network should have a sponsor from Executive
Council and a liaison from the office of the DFMS Vice President for Ministry
and Mission. Although Executive Council
might provide limited funding from a budgeted cache of seed money, the expectation
would be that the networks would be self-supporting.
All topical task forces should report to a sponsor or subcommittee from
Executive Council, with a liaison from DFMS staff. Funding should be identified by General
Convention or Executive Council before either body commiss
