Summary of 2012 Annual Conference Legislative Work

Members of the annual conference listen to the Rev. DJ del Rosario during the 2012 session at the Trac Center in Pasco, Washington. Photo by Jonathan Assink.

Please check back as we receive finalized copies of the approved legislation. Links are posted to pieces that were available prior to the start of Annual Conference and were passed without significant alteration. Please email any corrections you might see you Patrick Scriven.

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Church and Society

A resolution was passed to support Referendum 74. The approval of this referendum would allow SB 6239 (the Marriage Equality Act), that was signed by Governor Gregoire in February, to become law. This resolution calls for the Pacific Northwest Conference to support this bill with the rationale that supporting legal rights for all persons is in keeping with our Social Principles. Full Text

A second resolution passed called “Response to the Spiritual Crisis Caused by the Requirement to Discriminate”. This petition calls for us to reflect deeply on what it means to be a church together when we have significant disagreements with one another about how to best be neighbors. Also for how clergy, district superintendents, and bishops respond when clergy, acting in keeping with their conscience and sense of God’s call, disobey the Discipline. Full Text

Conference and Church Order

Two petitions passed to place National Historical markers on two sites, the First Methodist Episcopal Mission Site of 1841 in Nisqually, (present day Dupont), Washington and the Steilacoom Methodist Episcopal Church site in Steilacoom, Washington. Full Text

Discipleship

The Discipleship committee worked on several pieces of legislation that were brought to annual conference to assist churches in the work of discipling and reaching beyond our walls with our message of God’s love for the world. Approved Legislation will be posted soon.

Global Ministries

We voted to affirm our continuing partnership with the Jamaa Letu Orphanages in the Congo. We also approved a statement that further explains how the Board of Global Ministries functions and who constitutes the board. Page 89 of the PCH

Property and Finance

The budget for the 2012-2013 was passed. Minimum compensation for clergy was increase by 1.65%. We officially approved the closure of Lyle Unite Methodist Church and voted to donate the building to the Twin Bridges Historical Museum at the request of the Lyle congregation. Active Lyle members have moved to White Salmon UMC. The Bellevue Korean UMC was also officially closed. We approved the reduction of members to the Board of Pensions from 18 members to 12. We made changes to the pension rate and accepted the retirement annuity responsibility of the six clergy who retired this year. We voted on changes in our relationship to the Rockwood Retirement Community by reducing the number of United Methodists required on their board. Approved Legislation will be posted as available.

The apportionment formula was modified to include the Pastor’s Planned Compensation Paid and Associate Pastor’s Planned Compensation Paid rather than Pastor’s Base Compensation Paid and associate Pastor’s Base Compensation Paid. When churches move cash salary money to housing in order to realize the tax advantage and cover the mortgage, this lowers the pastor’s base compensation and subsequently the apportionments for that church. However, churches without parsonages cannot reclassify compensation in this way. Over time churches with parsonages are paying a disproportional amount of apportionments.  Changing the formula to planned compensation will treat every church the same based on the amount of monetary value each church contributes to the pastor.

Lastly we elected the Rev. Craig Parrish to continue in his role as Conference treasurer.

We were presented with a Nominating Committee Report on the efforts to fill all the positions on Boards, Commissions, Committees and Councils. It is still a work in progress, and those who would like to participate should contact Dale Cockrum.

Next year’s annual conference will be one day less in duration, June 14 -16, 2013. It was voted that we will hold our 2013 conference at the Pasco TRAC Center.

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Recorded by Gretchen Engle, Administrative Assistant for the Seattle Area Episcopal Office. Edits by Patrick Scriven.