I’ve been thinking further about the basis on which ministers should be paid.
It seems to me that there are only 3 approaches:
- the ‘cost to live’ principle – that is, pay what is needed to free them up for ministry
- the ‘responsibility’ principle – that is, pay them in some manner comensurate with the responsibility bourne
- the ‘free market’ principle – pay them whatever it takes to get them to come to the church and keep them there.
The truth is that none of them work perfectly.
The free market principle leads to perversions in the nature of the ministry done – never to be a ‘pretext for greed’.
The cost of living principle simply breaks down when you ask, ‘cost of whose living?’ Every minister’s situation, and therefore cost of living will be different – a family with 7 kids has a greater cost of living than a couple without children where the wife works, and yet the large family may have a $10M bank balance, and the childless couple may be financially caring for 4 aged parents; one minster may have bought a holiday house, which is then part of his cost of living, yet hardly seems to warrant an increased salary etc. Unless we want to go down the track of stipulating scales for every personal circumstance, and then investigating them (which seems silly), it strikes me that behind the simple statement ‘free them up for ministry’ is a pandora’s box of problems.
Which leaves the responsibility principle. I think this is the least problematic. It has the significant advantage of being based in justice – the same pay for the same job, different pay for different job. It also enacts what used to be called ‘the charitable assumption’; namely, that if a minister has more than he needs, it’s his responsibility (which he is trusted to do) to be generous with it through his giving, not the church’s job to not give it to him in the first place.
One way to do this is to find an award for a comparable responsibility (say department head in a school), and peg the minister’s stipend to that. Of course, account will need to be taken of ministry fringe benefits, such as the house etc.
The more I’ve thought about this, the clearer it has become to me that the least bad option is the best that will be available.
Good observations. I think in practice the cost of living proposal collapses into the responsibility principle. You may have the motive of paying the cost to live, but choose to peg the salary on a comparable salary in the wider world.
But perhaps if your motive is still cost of living, you may not have as many pay scales for different ministry portfolios?
On another note, I don’t think it’s super cool to factor in fringe beneftis too much. After all, fringe benefits and tax exemptions are accorded on the assumption that work and home expenses overlap, aren’t they?
So it seems to me a little cynical for the church to double-up on this, and factor-in the factoring-in of home/work overlap and so downscale the overall pay package…?!
Mikey,
interesting point about the double counting of fringe benefits.
Though at the same time, I think it’s standard practice to reduce salary if, say, a car is provided for a school principal – ie. salary sacrifice.
Perhaps I’m thinking about situations where the church also factors in the fact that fringe benefits are also not taxed?
Hi Andrew,
I like your pay for responsibility thoughts, but I don’t think you will be able to entirely leave cost of living behind. I think housing is the problematic issue, largely because it is not just an expense out of the personal budget, but because it is part of what is required for you to do your job. That is when a company provides cars or phones or air tickets, it is not tied to the level of responsibility, but to the fact that the particular role requires certain kinds of resources.
Tim
The other thing which is taken into account is the tax implications (whether such implications should or shouldn’t be taken into account is another issue).
Thinking aloud here. What about a fourth option, which ties pay not to a commensurate level of responsibility, but to an average income for a given area in order to avoid both poverty and riches? The immediate issue is “which area?” I would suggest the average income of full time workers in a Diocese, though possibly it could be average national income.
For reference, here is the current pay-scale (somewhat simplified, I think) for teachers in NSW government schools:
http://www.edsw.usyd.edu.au/future_students/careers/teacher_salaries.shtml.
Hmmm, sorry if my second paragraph did not relate to the first. I was just linking to some actual numbers for Andrew’s suggestion of head teacher income.
Just a comment on the fringe benefits.
For most clergy the house is provided free of charge as a fringe benefit. This helps a church in that once they have paid off the house themselves they can house their clergy for next to nothing (maintenance costs only).
For the young clergyman he is tremendously advantaged because he does not have to buy a first home then upgrade to a bigger one as the family gets bigger – thus he benefits from a rectory standard house earlier, and no worries about mortgages, interest rates etc…
However, by the end of his ministry he is tremendously disadvantaged because he has not spent 25 to 30 years paying off a mortgage such that by the time of retirement he has a house behind him.
How then does this get factored into clergy remuneration especially if working off a ‘responsibility’ model? Very difficult n’est pas?
Bazz,
I think the way this is approached in the Anglican scene is by paying around double the minimum level of superannuation, so that at retirement time, there will be enough to buy a flat / house outright.
Byron,
stagger me! I had no idea of the pay level for teachers above the entry level. It raises interesting issues!
In fact, the method used up until this year was exactly as you suggest – 80% of Average Weekly Earnings. But the question has been raised, on what basis should minister salaries be tied to that?
Any thoughts?
In fact, the method used up until this year was exactly as you suggest – 80% of Average Weekly Earnings. But the question has been raised, on what basis should minister salaries be tied to that?
Well, one possible basis would be the prayer in Proverbs 30.7-9:
Tying clerical income to average wages would be one way of trying to avoid the spiritual dangers of either poverty or great riches (though since the vast majority of Australians are incredibly wealthy by global and historical standards, this could be misleading). Nonetheless, at a more pragmatic level, it may help reduce one possible barrier to ministry due to significant disparity of income between minister and congregation.
Two chances!
Anyway is double enough?
Some questions:
-How do you accomodate the discounted education that some church schools offer ministers, but which parishioners might never be able to pay for?
-How do you adjust remuneratation for someone who is on call 24/7 (even if they’re disciplined enough to genuinely take their sabbath rest) compared to a secular job where this is normally taken into consideration.
-Some ministry teams are one deep!! Others can have a whole gaggle (collective noun for Anglican ministers). But Diocesan recommended stipends are (largely) based on quals and years out, not responsibilities. How is that fair? (I’m not sure which of the two types of minister should get more pay, mind you!!)
What I’ve found (as a warden) is:
-Grossing up property and treating it as a fringe benefit is largely pointless. In our area, a house goes for no less than 2M, or $1000 a week minimum. It’s a tool of the trade. And lets face it, for established churches, property is not the real issue – it’s more of a tearer for church plants.
-Our area is more expensive in terms of cost of living, but our church is more capable to meet those costs – as a result, our church pays our staff above diocesan recommended wages.
Money is tricky, and I think the Anglican church is, by and large, crap at educating relevant lay leaders (who set stipends at parish level, cognisant of diocesan recommended levels). The Diocese should provide more guidance to clergy and laity alike in evaluating the appropriate remuneration for ministers (and in fact, also for casual staff – we rely heavily on the odd parishioner who has experience in this, but would be screwed without them).
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