UUA Office of Church Staff Finances
Guided by Unitarian Universalist values,
we equip congregations for excellence as employers
and their staff for financial competence and well-being. |
Compensation and Staffing News |
Editor's Note: Updating Webpages
Dear Readers,
We've been reviewing and revising some of our webpages. In our lead article below, we share what's new. Stay tuned for more new and improved pages in the months ahead.
Please let us know about changes to your staff and lay leadership all year long. For staff, this includes salary and hours changes, new home addresses, terminations, and retirements. Keep these links handy:
Faithfully, |
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Jan Gartner, Compensation and Staffing Practices Manager |
New and Revised LeaderLab Pages
We have some new and improved webpages for you! Here's the rundown, with a button to take you to each article:
Worker Classification
Worker classifications are important legal distinctions. There are two types of worker classification: Employee versus Independent Contractor and Exempt versus Nonexempt (under the Fair Labor Standards Act). In the past, our information about these classifications lived on two separate LeaderLab pages. But because we nearly always sent them out together, we've combined these critical topics into a single page, making some clarifications in the process. |
UUA Benefit Recommendations
As you know, process guidance comes first in our Salary Program. We've offered process guidance for benefits, too, but it's been buried on a separate page from our better-known benefit levels. We've now republished our Benefit Recommendations page, with Benefits Process Guidance right at the top, followed by our Recommended Benefit Levels, which are unchanged for now. With the exception of the payment in lieu of FICA, we do not have separate benefit recommendations for ministers; we expect benefits to be offered equitably across eligible staff. |
"Start as you mean to continue" is an adage Jan learned as a religious educator. Showing intention in recruiting, hiring, and onboarding your staff sets the stage for a strong employment relationship.
We've reformatted our Hiring Staff page, which contains valuable resources for bringing on new staff, including guidance on special topics such as hiring members and staffing for diversity. |
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Staff Development and Support
Well-equipped staff provide consistent, skilled, accountable leadership, which in turn builds capacity and ownership among the laity and enables congregations to thrive. You'll find a variety of resources for nurturing and developing your staff on this recently republished page. Performance evaluations, professional expenses, and compassionate terminations are just some of the topics you'll find here. |
Life and Long-Term Disability Notes
Adjustments for Older Workers
The face value of our Group Term Life Insurance is typically 2 x annual salary (including housing for clergy), up to a maximum of $200,000. However, in order to adjust for actuarial risk, the amount paid in the event of death is reduced to 60% of the original amount starting at age 65. Beginning at age 70, the benefit payable goes down to 35% of the original amount. Monthly premiums are prorated accordingly.
For Long-Term Disability, the premium and annual value of the benefit are the same for employees of all ages. But the maximum period of payment begins to decline at age 60. If an employee becomes disabled at age 60, the maximum period of payment is 60 months. At age 61 or beyond, the period of payment gradually declines from 48 months down to 12 months as described in the coverage booklet.
Policy Changes Are Not Qualifying Events
Some congregations have been paying for their minister's Life and/or Long-Term Disability (LTD) coverage while making these important benefits available to other eligible staff only at the employees' own expense. Sadly, the result is that many employees have declined the coverage and therefore lack the income protection afforded to the minister.
As we've been emphasizing the importance of offering benefits equitably across the staff team, many congregations are revising their policies to cover Life and LTD premiums for all eligible staff. Bravo!
With the congregation newly committing to paying the premium, current employees may want to enroll. But a policy change such as this is not a qualifying event. Once the regular 60-day enrollment window has closed, staff who want to enroll in Life or LTD coverage will need to go through a medical underwriting process. (Contact InsurancePlans@uua.org for information.)
Please don't let this discourage you from creating equitable policies! If an existing employee chooses to go through the medical screening and is accepted by Guardian, they will have this worthwhile coverage as part of their compensation package. And all eligible staff hired after the policy change will have the assurance of long-term disability coverage as a benefit of employment. |
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