Truesee's Daily Wonder

Truesee presents the weird, wild, wacky and world news of the day.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

 

Parishioners' sue new senior minister over $600,000 salary

Head of Riverside Church defends Rev. Brad Braxton's $600K annual compensation

Thursday, April 23rd 2009, 4:00 AM

The head of the Riverside Church Council is defending a more than $600,000-a-year package for the church's new senior minister - a setup that has sparked a court fight among members of the congregation

The Rev. Brad Braxton's pay is "in line with compensation packages of other religious leaders in Manhattan who minister to congregations of a similar size and scope," the council chairman, Billy Jones, said in a statement released through public relations guru Howard Rubenstein.

As the Daily News revealed Wednesday, Braxton's lavish package includes a $250,000 annual salary, a monthly "living allowance" of $11,500, plus separate allowances for a maid, entertainment, travel and professional development expenses. There's even an annual payment into a fund for Braxton to save money to buy a home.

Church leaders resisted disclosure of the contract's specifics in a hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court this week. Church sources say it amounts to double what the Rev. James Forbes, Braxton's predecessor, received in the final years of his 18-year tenure.

Thanks to the "living allowance," Braxton, a 40-year-old former professor at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, his wife and young daughter have moved into a penthouse apartment at the Montana, a luxury high-rise on the upper West Side where apartments rent for up to $18,000 a month.

A Riverside spokesman declined a request for an interview with Braxton. A woman who answered the door to the couple's apartment also declined to talk.

Jones said Braxton's employment contract "was presented to the congregation on three separate occasions and was voted on, and approved by the congregation in our budget meeting."

Several church members dispute that claim.

"If what they say is true, why would we still be asking to see the compensation package?" said Virl Andrick, who sits on the church budget committee and is a 25-year member of the congregation.

He is among a group that went to court to try to block Braxton's installation, scheduled for Sunday.

The dissidents say they never got details of what their new pastor would cost when they voted to hire him. They've asked for a full meeting of the congregation May 3 to question Braxton and church leaders about thecontract.

They are worried the huge endowment the socially liberal Morningside Heights church received from John D. Rockefeller Jr. decades ago shriveled in the stock market collapse to barely more than $100 million.

At the same time, the church is running a huge operating deficit each year, but can draw no more 5% from the endowment to cover shortfalls.

"That means the operating budget over the next three years will have to be catastrophically reduced," said Richard Stone, a former church leader and lawyer for the Braxton opponents.

There is no excuse for shelling out so much money for one minister in the midst of an economic meltdown for both the country and their own church, they say.

Jones and church leaders see things differently. They point to Braxton's "breadth of responsibilities." In addition to meeting the spiritual needs of the congregation, his duties include "overseeing a staff of 150 people ... overseeing a full-time day school of 128 students and running 80 church and community programs," Jones said.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone has urged the two sides to reconcile their differences.

 

 

PREVIOUS ARTICLE----

Reverend Brad Braxton. 

Reverend Brad Braxton 

 

 

 

 

New Riverside Church pastor Rev. Brad Braxton's $600K compensation prompts parishioners' suit

Wednesday, April 22nd 2009, 4:00 AM

Manhattan's Riverside Church - one of the country's most illustrious religious institutions - is paying its new senior pastor, the Rev. Brad Braxton, more than $600,000 in annual compensation.

That's twice what Braxton's predecessor, James Forbes, one of the country's best-known preachers, was getting after running Riverside for more than 18 years.

It amounts to almost 10 times what William Sloane Coffin, the legendary anti-Vietnam War clergyman, was paid in his last year as senior minister at Riverside in 1987.

Braxton was selected in a vote of the congregation last fall and is to be officially installed Sunday.

A group of church dissidents claims the members were never told about the lavish package.

Those dissidents filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court last week to stop Braxton's installation, revealing a growing divide among the church's 1,500 members.

The Wall Street-like package, the dissidents say, is outrageous for a man of the cloth - especially when you consider Riverside's long history of advocating social justice.

Church sources say it includes:

On top of that, Braxton immediately hired a new second in command at more than $300,000 a year.

"Where's the social justice in this?" said Diana Solomon-Glover, a member of the church choir and one of the petitioners in the suit.

"We have an economic crisis in the country, and none of the church staff are getting raises this year, but a few people at the top are getting these huge salaries?"

In a hearing Tuesday, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Lewis Bart Stone denied the dissidents' request to delay Sunday's installation. The judge urged church leaders to provide the opposition a fair chance to be heard by the church membership.

He adjourned the case until after a special meeting of the congregation scheduled for May 3.

The two sides should find a way to achieve "some form of fellowship and reconciliation between members of the church," Stone said, to "prevent a split."

"They [the dissidents] don't want to accept that the majority has already spoken," said Sarah Conly, who backs Braxton. The vote last fall to appoint Braxton was overwhelming, his supporters say.

"I don't know why they even brought this case into court," said Jean Schmidt, vice chair of the Church Council, one of the key officials who brought in Braxton.

"If the members of the church had known what his total compensation was when we voted, we wouldn't have chosen him," said Virl Andrick, a 25-year member of the church and of its budget and planning commission.

Only a tiny group in the leadership has details of the contract, he said.

"There's a problem with the process," Andrick said. As an interdenominational church, Riverside is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Churches, but the two denominations have very distinct governing philosophies.

Congregational churches "have complete transparency on finances," Andrick said. "Members know everything about the church's finances and the pastor's salary."

Baptist churches, on the other hand, tend to keep vital information among key church leaders.


Comments:
I guess the "greed in corporate America" extends to big city churches! This article is breathtaking. What hypocracy! Is that what Jesus would teach? He threw the money lenders OUT of the church, and now we have them RUNNING the church. Bad!
Post a Comment

<< Home

Archives

March 2024   February 2024   January 2024   December 2023   November 2023   October 2023   September 2023   August 2023   July 2023   June 2023   May 2023   April 2023   March 2023   February 2023   January 2023   December 2022   November 2022   October 2022   September 2022   August 2022   July 2022   June 2022   May 2022   April 2022   March 2022   February 2022   January 2022   December 2021   November 2021   October 2021   September 2021   August 2021   July 2021   June 2021   May 2021   April 2021   March 2021   February 2021   January 2021   December 2020   November 2020   October 2020   September 2020   August 2020   July 2020   June 2020   May 2020   April 2020   March 2020   February 2020   January 2020   December 2019   November 2019   October 2019   September 2019   August 2019   July 2019   June 2019   May 2019   April 2019   March 2019   February 2019   January 2019   December 2018   November 2018   October 2018   September 2018   August 2018   July 2018   June 2018   May 2018   April 2018   March 2018   February 2018   January 2018   December 2017   November 2017   October 2017   September 2017   August 2017   July 2017   June 2017   May 2017   April 2017   March 2017   February 2017   January 2017   December 2016   November 2016   October 2016   September 2016   August 2016   July 2016   June 2016   May 2016   April 2016   March 2016   February 2016   January 2016   December 2015   November 2015   October 2015   September 2015   August 2015   July 2015   June 2015   May 2015   April 2015   March 2015   February 2015   January 2015   December 2014   November 2014   October 2014   September 2014   August 2014   July 2014   June 2014   May 2014   April 2014   March 2014   February 2014   January 2014   December 2013   November 2013   October 2013   September 2013   August 2013   July 2013   June 2013   May 2013   April 2013   March 2013   February 2013   January 2013   December 2012   November 2012   October 2012   September 2012   August 2012   July 2012   June 2012   May 2012   April 2012   March 2012   February 2012   January 2012   December 2011   November 2011   October 2011   September 2011   August 2011   July 2011   June 2011   May 2011   April 2011   March 2011   February 2011   January 2011   December 2010   November 2010   October 2010   September 2010   August 2010   July 2010   June 2010   May 2010   April 2010   March 2010   February 2010   January 2010   December 2009   November 2009   October 2009   September 2009   August 2009   July 2009   June 2009   May 2009   April 2009   March 2009   February 2009   January 2009   December 2008  

Powered by Lottery PostSyndicated RSS FeedSubscribe