1604. General Authorizations--1. The General Board of Pension and Health Benefits, consistent with the Church's mandate for inclusiveness of the Church and for racial and social justice, is authorized to adopt and further any and all plans, to undertake any and all activities, and to create, obtain, accept, receive, manage, and administer any and all assets or property, absolute or in trust for specified purposes, for the purpose of increasing the revenues and of providing for, aiding in, and contributing to the support, relief, and assistance and pensioning of ordained ministers and their families and other Church workers and lay employees in The United Methodist Church and its constituent boards, organizations, and institutions; to do any and all acts and things deemed by the board to be necessary and convenient in connection therewith or incident thereto; and to perform any and all other duties and functions from time to time imposed, authorized, or directed by the General Conference of The United Methodist Church. No proposal shall be made to the General Conference which changes a benefit presently in effect without first securing through the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits an actuarial opinion concerning the cost and other related aspects of the proposed change.
2. The board is authorized to manage and administer pension and benefit funds, plans, and programs in such manner as may be deemed by the board to be reasonably necessary to achieve an efficient, equitable, and adequate operation; and to receive, hold, manage, and disburse the moneys related thereto in accordance with the provisions of the respective funds, plans, and programs.
3. The board is authorized to receive, hold, manage, merge, consolidate, administer, and invest and reinvest, by and through its constituent corporations, all connectional pension and benefit funds. The board shall discharge its duties with respect to a plan solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries and defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan, with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims. The board is encouraged to invest in institutions, companies, corporations, or funds which make a positive contribution toward the realization of the goals outlined in the Social Principles of our Church, subject to other provisions of the Discipline, and with due regard to any and all special contracts, agreements, and laws applicable thereto.37 Among the tools the board may use are shareholder advocacy, selective divestment, and advocacy of corporate disinvestment from certain countries or fields of business.
4. The board is authorized to receive, hold, manage, adminster, and invest and reinvest, by and through its constitutent corporations, endowment funds belonging to annual conferences or other funds for pension and benefit purposes to be administered for such annual conferences. The board is encouraged to invest in institutions, companies, corporations, or funds which make a positive contribution toward the realization of the goals outlined in the Social Principles of our Church; provided, however, that at no time shall any part of the principal of the endowment funds be appropriated by the board for any other purpose. The net income of such funds shall be accounted for annually by the board and paid over to the annual conferences concerned.
5. The board is authorized, on request of an annual conference or conference organization or agency of The United Methodist Church, to receive therefrom distributable and reserve pension funds and to make the periodic pension payments to the beneficiaries of such annual conference, conference organization, board, or agency, in accordance with a schedule of distribution which shall be provided for the guidance of the board in making such payments. The board shall report annually the details of transactions under this provision. The board shall be entitled to recover the cost of performing such services.
6. The board, by and through its constituent corporations, is authorized and empowered to receive any gift, devise, or bequest made or intended for beneficiaries of The United Methodist Church, being the legal successor to and vested with the legal title to any and all such gifts, devises, and bequests. If the language or terms of any gift, devise, or bequest are inexact or ambiguous, the board shall dispose of or administer the same in the manner deemed most equitable according to the apparent intent of the donor as determined by the board after careful inquiry into the circumstances in connection with the making of such gift, devise, or bequest, and after granting full opportunity to all interested parties to be heard, after due and timely written notice of the time and place of hearing. Such notice shall be mailed to each and all interested parties through their respectively known representatives, at their last known addresses.
7. The constituent corporations shall, until otherwise determined by the board, continue to collect, receive, and administer such gifts, devises, and bequests, and other funds as may be specifically designated to them by donors, subject to the rules, regulations, and policies of the board with respect thereto. All undesignated gifts, devises, bequests, and donations shall be collected, received, and administered under the direction of the board.
8. The board shall not use for operational or administrative purposes funds raised for the World Service budget of The United Methodist Church.
9. The appropriations from the net earnings of the publishing interests which are contributed to the pension programs of The United Methodist Church, and of the several annual conferences, shall be distributed on the basis determined by the board.
10. The board shall compile and maintain complete service records of clergy members in full connection, associate members, and probationary members, and of local pastors whose service may be related to potential annuity claims of the annual conferences of The United Methodist Church situated within the boundaries of the United States and Puerto Rico. Such service records shall be based on answers to the business of the annual conference questions as published in the journals of the annual conferences situated within the boundaries of the United States and Puerto Rico and in the General Minutes of The United Methodist Church, or in comparable publications of either or both of the uniting Churches, and from information provided by annual conference boards of pensions. The conference Boards of Pensions shall be responsible for providing census data when requested by the board on participants and their families including, but not limited to, such data as birthdates, marriage dates, divorce dates, and dates of death.38
11. The board shall administer a clearinghouse for the allocation of pension responsibility among the annual conferences situated within the boundaries of the United States and Puerto Rico, in accordance with the principle of divided annuity responsibility, and for the collection and distribution of pension funds related to such responsibility.
a) For each beneficiary involved in the operation of the clearinghouse the board shall determine the division of responsibility on account of approved service rendered.
b) The board shall have authority to determine the pension responsibility of each annual conference, in accordance with the principle of divided annuity responsibility, and to collect from each annual conference, as determined on the basis of their respective pension programs, the amount required by the clearinghouse to provide the pension benefits related thereto. Each annual conference shall provide funds to meet its annuity responsibility to beneficiaries of other annual conferences on the same basis as it provides pension payments for beneficiaries related directly to itself.39
c) The board is authorized and empowered to make all the rules concerning details that may be necessary to the operation of the clearinghouse.
12. The board is authorized and empowered to continue the operation, management, and administration of the following pension and benefit funds, plans, and programs, these to include but not to be restricted to: The Ministerial Pension Plan; The Comprehensive Protection Plan; The Lay Pension Plan; The Basic Protection Plan; The Staff Pension Plan; The Staff Retirement Benefits Program; The Senior Plan; Ministers Reserve Pension Fund; The Minister's Reserve Pension Plan; The Current Income Distribution Pension Plan; Joint Contributory Annuity Fund; Staff Pension Fund; The Pension Plan for Lay Employees; Lay Employees Pension Fund; Cumulative Pension and Benefit Fund; Tax-Deferred Annuity Contributions Program; UMCare; Hospitalization and Medical Expense Program; Death Benefit Program; Bishops Reserve Pension and Benefit Fund, in consultation with the General Council on Finance and Administration; The Printing Establishment of The United Brethren in Christ Fund; The Home Office Pension Fund of the General Board of Global Ministries, in consultation with the General Board of Global Ministries; Chaplains Pension Fund, in consultation with the Division of Chaplains and Related Ministries; Retirement Allowance for Bishops, General Church Officers, and Staff Personnel Plan of the former Evangelical United Brethren Church, with funds to be provided by the General Council on Finance and Administration; Temporary General Aid Fund, in consultation with the General Commission on Religion and Race, as determined by the General Conference, with funds to be provided by the General Council on Finance and Administration. The General Board of Pension and Health Benefits shall report to the General Conference, pension and benefit funds, plans, and programs to be proposed for the General Conference to receive, review, adopt, approve, or otherwise act upon this report.
13. The board is authorized to prepare and publish a pension manual related to the funds, plans, and programs administered by the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits, and such other materials not inconsistent with the Discipline as may be deemed reasonably necessary by the board to its efficient operation.
14. In all matters not specifically covered by General Conference legislation or by reasonable implication, the board shall have authority to adopt rules, regulations, and policies for the administration of the support of beneficiaries of The United Methodist Church.
15. Pension for service approved for pension credit by an agency of The United Methodist Church receiving financial support from the World Service Fund, the General Administration Fund, the Episcopal Fund, or any authorized general benevolent or administrative fund shall be provided by the employing agency in uniformity with that provided by other agencies under one of the pension funds, plans, or programs administered by the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits of The United Methodist Church; provided, however, that where service has been rendered in two or more agencies, the total pension benefit shall be calculated as if all such service had been with one agency and the final agency shall provide any additional pension benefits necessary to accomplish this; furthermore, such agency may not make any arrangement with a life insurance company or any other entity for the purchase of annuities for the benefit of individual effective or retired employees or take any steps to nullify, in whole or in part, the pension plans or program of The United Methodist Church by making contracts with outside parties.
37See Judicial Council Decisions 577, 585.
38See Judicial Council Decision 165.
39See Judicial Council Decision 360.
General Conference Webmaster: Susan Brumbaugh
PETS Creator: John Brawn
1992 Book of Discipline: ¶ 1604
1996 United Methodist General Conference