GCE45 GS42 Amending GC45 WF08 for February 2026

1. What is the issue?

We are being called to modify the timeline of one portion of the approved Total Compensation Review Proposal from the 45th General Council.

2. Why is the issue important?

The 45th General Council directed the General Secretary to:

annually provide regional councils with aggregate payroll data by regional cost of living groups to support them ensuring fair and equitable compensation terms at the time of appointment and call and ensuring compliance with minimum salary standards;

The preparation of aggregate payroll data on ministry personnel serving in communities of faith requires collaboration between General Council Office staff from the pastoral charge payroll team in the Shared Services Unit and the Office of Vocation team in the Theology and Ministry Leadership Unit. Each team has access to separate data points required for the analysis, such as annual salary, Cost of Living (COL) group assignment, salary category, hours worked per week, and start and end-dates of calls or appointments. The analysis of annual salaries requires extensive work, and significant staff time, to match and verify two large data sets. Staff are beginning to examine how to automate or simply the process. However, the work is overwhelming if it is expected annually.

The minimum salary schedule for members of the order of ministry is a 36-figure matrix of minimum salaries across 6 COL groups (1-6) and 6 salary categories (A-F). To be compliant with privacy legislation and ensure that no one individual can be identified from the data, the aggregate data needs to be based on salary data for at least three ministry personnel in each COL group and salary category (e.g., D-COL5 or F-COL3). The salary data provided to the Total Compensation Review Task Group provided a glimpse of what providing aggregate payroll data to regional councils could look like. Because of limits on the number of each ministry personnel behind each data point (in the 36-figure matrix), staff expect that it will not possible to aggregate data for each COL group and salary category for each regional council. To ensure privacy, it will be more robust to look at data for the whole church.

3. How might the Executive of the General Council respond to this issue? 

The General Council Executive could respond to the issue by

1. Directing the General Secretary to provide regional councils once a triennium with aggregate payroll data by regional cost of living groups to support them ensuring fair and equitable compensation terms at the time of appointment and call and ensuring compliance with minimum salary standards; and
2. Report the change to the October 2026 meeting of General Council 45 explaining the need was necessary to accomplish the task within staff and financial limitations.

4. What will be the impact?

The impact of this change would be significant annual saving to staff time. The proposed change would allow staff time in 2026 to determine if there are better ways to automate some steps of the salary analysis and ensure that the process is less time consuming.

5. How does this proposal help us live into the commitments on equity?

The proposal helps us live into the commitments on equity by still ensuring that aggregate payroll data will be regularly available to regional councils to help them ensure fair and equitable compensation terms at the time of appointment and call. It may also be available to ministry personnel who may find the data helpful as they approach negotiations for a call or appointment with a pastoral charge.

If this proposal is in response to assigned work – either from General Council or a previous GCE meeting, please list proposal / motion numbers. 
GC45 WF08: GCE02 Total Compensation Review Proposals for Summer 2025