An Open Blog, Part 2

Health History of an Ailing System
In my previous blog post I promised a different post follow up than I'm going to offer.  My prayerful reflection informed me that a short history might help us understand how we got to where we are.  Continuing to resurrect the ghost of Epworth, let's start with the early symptoms of a sick system.  For years prior to the close of Epworth, deferred maintenance was the way of the old MO East Conference.  Funds for camps were not readily available, apportioned funds were not raised and capital campaigns were discouraged.  Lee Walz, former director of Camping and Retreats used to tell the story that he once had to tell Terry Mefford to spend some money on maintenance.  Terry had been told for so long not to spend money at Jo-Ota that he was afraid to pull out the wallet at all.  That was what Lee inherited from the former East Conference.  The West was in a little better shape but Galillee was well past salvage when Lee came on board in in the late nineties.

In 2003, the first year a combined budget for the conference was released (2002 Journal) the total budget from apportionments was just shy of $1,000,000.  $150,000 was designated for capital expense.  That's about the cost of building one new cabin or renovating a couple of buildings.  The four sites have a combined 40 buildings.  As you can imagine, that money was coveted by each site director.
The 2014 budget for spending on camps was $500,000 less.  That's not completely fair because in 2008 something happened that represented a radical change in management of our camps.  I can't share this without some strong emotions, I'll try, but I won't succeed.  It was at the last meeting that Jerry Akins was the president of the board, he was turning over that responsibility to me.  Representatives from the conference office came to our meeting and asked if we wouldn't mind making a change in the way accounting was done.  Would we move some line items around so that the Director of Camping and the camp office administrative staff would fall under the the conference office staff instead of under the camping and retreat lines of the conference budget.  That seemed innocent enough to all of us but Jerry.  In hindsight, I wish we would have let Jerry convince us of his concerns, but he was willing to let this new board over rule him without a bitter fight.  With that vote the salaries of the director, 2 full time and one part time administrative person (only one position was filled as we were seeking to save funds, however all the funds necessary for the 2 1/2 positions were transferred) and the salaries of the site directors were moved to the conference, preserving health insurance for the site directors as they became employees of the conference and not Camping and Retreat Ministries.
Shortly after that meeting two events took place that placed camping on hold.  Lee Walz had a heart attack and Tammy Calcoate went on maternity leave.  Tammy returned after her leave (8 weeks?) only to find that she had been transferred out of camping and would now work for the office of Congregational Development, leaving camping still without any staff.  (It is my opinion that Tammy was, and is, the best and brightest of the administrative staff in that office, it's no wonder she was stolen away.)  Lee returned about a month later to limited access to administrative staff.  When he finally got someone designated to the work of the camp office it was a half time assignment.  Brenda, also had other responsibilities in the office that overwhelmed her to the point that we rarely got half of her time.
Having effectively crippled the camp office's work by allowing it to lie fallow the whole time Lee was gone, the camp board was also surprised by another revelation.  As we were no longer the employers of our staff, we were therefore not the managers either.  In other words, we had the legal, fiduciary responsibility for the property we owned (we were a non-profit, separately incorporated body in the state of Missouri) but we had no ability to manage the staff that managed our property.  To a person, those on the board at the time of that vote had no idea that we were voting to neuter our ability to make the much needed changes we knew had to come.  Many of us came away from this experience believing we were deceived by those who spoke to us from the conference office.  We felt we were miss-led to believe it was only an accounting adjustment, not a managerial shift.  (We knew there would be a shift in the administrative staff.  We were entering into this with the spirit that, when the camping office is slow, let's share our staff with the other conference needs.  And when we were busy, we would be reinforced by other conference staff.  That never happened.)
You would have to ask Lee Walz about the rest of this.  I don't want to speak for him, but my experience of Lee as he returned was that he was afraid to make any decisions.  The board would make a plan, and he'd have to have it cleared.  Instead of being a time to catalyze change, no changes were allowed.  It seemed a season of foot dragging.
In the midst of this inaction, camping was experiencing a constant decline in our budget.  The board would propose increases to cover much needed repairs and program expansion and the response would be a decrease.  At the same time, we were discouraged from proposing increases in camper fees.  We certainly wanted to hold the line, but costs to operate camps were ever increasing and conference support was decreasing.  When the idea of securing funds through an ongoing pledge campaign was discouraged.  I recall Lee saying that there were people who felt that would cause issues with the churches whose membership would be asked to contribute to camp operations, after all, they already paid apportionments.  With hands tied we did what we could.
Let's be clear, there is a cost to maintaining property and ministry.  If churches don't pay their apportionments, healthier churches have to step up.  Those healthier churches don't appreciate when their apportionments grow.  At the same time, camper fee increases were constantly attacked, sometimes by people in churches that weren't paying apportionments  That was frustrating.  I'm not sure where people thought the cost of camp operations were going to be covered. I suggest that the downward pressure on apportionments and camp fees is a theology of scarcity in Missouri Methodism.  A theology of scarcity is not Christian, it's not an acceptable theology, and yet it is the source of so many of our decisions we make in our conference.
I think the decision that was made to shutter our site ministries is based upon this theology of scarcity.  I don't blame them for making this decision.  It seems like a logical decision based upon the fact that camps are losing money.  But to tell the truth, they're not losing money, they are improperly funded.  15 years or more of increased costs, downward pressure from apportionments and demands to hold the line on camp fees have necessitated deferred maintenance and limited the possibility of making the changes necessary to face future generations.
What I've written also suggests additional ailments in the system, but for now I'll leave it to camping and retreat ministry.
Next time I'll write on my previously promoted topic, Figures Lie and Liars Figure.