Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992 TAG: 9203150186
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Pay for Roanoke Valley clergy lags behind inflation, area church leaders believe, but probably not as much as indicated in a recent poll conducted by Christianity Today magazine.
Nationally, Christian clergy salaries rose an average of only 7.4 percent from 1988 to 1991, less than half the inflation rate, according to the 1992 Church Compensation Report.
Several regional church executives in the Roanoke Valley said last week they believe area clergy salaries are probably climbing near the inflation rate, though few statistics are available.
Individual congregations or their governing boards tend to set salaries, even in churches overseen by bishops or other regional executives.
A United Methodist district stewardship committee each year makes a recommendation for minimum pastoral raises - a figure linked to the Consumer Price Index - said Roanoke District Superintendent Eugene Carter.
Last summer, for instance, the recommendation was for a 5 percent increase, Carter said, though it is a figure he can't enforce. "Some give no raise, and others may give 10 percent," he said.
Carter and others said congregation size, personalities and economic circumstances are additional factors influencing clergy salaries.
In a parish where members are facing a pay freeze themselves, "there may be a feeling of everyone sharing in that pain," said Alan Boyce, deputy for administration in the office of the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.
Like the Methodists, the Episcopalians publish a recommended cost-of-living raise, but individual congregations are not obliged to follow it.
Kirk Lashley, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Baptist Association, said he believes most Southern Baptist churches "tend to make an attempt to match cost-of-living increases - especially now that inflation is not so high."
In the national survey, slightly more than a third of senior pastors and 41 percent of single pastors said they were underpaid.
About 4,000 churches participated in the salary study, a 40 percent response rate of the 10,251 surveys sent out. The churches reported pay packages for 12,000 employees.
Since the last survey in 1988, clergy salaries rose an average of 7.4 percent to $21,940. Total clergy compensation, including housing allowances, pension and insurance expenses, rose 12.6 percent to $37,260, reflecting a more than 50 percent increase in insurance benefits due to skyrocketing health care costs.
But even total compensation trailed the 16 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index since the 1988 study.
Hard economic times and a natural reluctance for members of a vocation so attuned to serving others to participate in salary battles are the reasons clergy salaries are lagging, church officials said.
Owen Stultz, executive director of the Virlina District of the Church of the Brethren, pointed out that ministers often fear that bargaining for a salary increase will leave the impression that they are "in it for the money, and that people will hold that against them."
Boyce pointed out that he felt it was the Episcopal diocese's obligation "to challenge and encourage the parishes" to properly compensate ministers, who should not have to lobby for salary increases from their vestries.
Among Southern Baptists, Lashley said, it is rare for a minister to get a "sizable increase in salary unless he or she goes to a new situation."
Pastors may be accused of chasing after a salary when they move on to higher-paying positions, Lashley said, but he sometimes chastises churches for taking their ministers for granted in terms of salary.
Sometimes congregations don't catch on until they "experience `sticker shock' when they try to get a new pastor."
"A church may find that the guy they thought they could get for $24,000 wants $40,000," Lashley said.
All of the executives said burgeoning costs of health insurance, pensions, and other benefits also affect how well a church compensates its minister.
Annual increases of 30 percent to 50 percent for health-insurance premiums alone are enough to scare finance committees into limiting pay raises. That may be combined with automatic increases in annuity or pension payments that are usually linked to salary.
Lashley argues that congregations often unfairly put too much emphasis on the "total compensation package" for ministers and other staff, artificially inflating what would normally be considered salary.
In most secular jobs, benefits such as insurance, pension and Social Security co-payments are not considered as part of an employee's annual compensation, he said. Neither are business-related expenses such as travel, mileage or professional training.
In churches, it is common to add all that up to a total that can "sound like they are making decent money when they really don't see that much cash at the end of the month," Lashley said.
"There is a popular misconception" that ministers pay no taxes, he said, that also may influence pay. In fact, ministers do pay income and Social Security taxes as if they were self-employed. They can get a tax break on homes and annuities, he said, but he considers the resulting tax burden "a wash."
The national study found average total compensation - salary and benefits - ranged from $78,421 for a senior pastor of a church with a budget over $1 million to $22,849 for single pastors in churches with budgets of less than $50,000.
Pastors from Episcopal, United Church of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Reformed churches averaged $53,115 in total compensation, about 30 percent higher than the lowest-paid Protestant denominations, which included Mennonite, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and some Baptist churches. The average total compensation reported for Roman Catholic pastors was $20,892.
Some information for this story came from the Associated Press.
by CNB