Conference to consider prescription plan

Pension board offers
proposal to change
insurance for retirees

Southwest Texas leaders have one more decision to make when they meet next week in Corpus Christi.
The 147th session of the Southwest Texas Annual Conference runs June 1-4 at Corpus Christi’s newly renovated American Bank Center.
The Board of Pensions is asking representatives of the region’s 350 United Methodist congregations to eliminate prescription drug coverage from the medical insurance plan for retired clergy members.
The proposal, which affects 147 individuals, is explained in an addendum to the 2005 Pre-Conference Report distributed during district conferences this month. Additional copies are to be distributed during the Corpus Christi meeting next week.
If adopted, the action would cut medical insurance premiums by an average $2,600 per year, starting Jan. 1. Retirees could use that savings to enroll in Medicare Part D prescription coverage.
At least 128 of the 147 people affected by the proposed change would save money, the pension board report says. That average savings should run about $1,876 per year.
Nineteen participants are expected to pay an average $367 per year more for prescription coverage. They had the highest prescription claims last year.
The entire proposal is expected to save the conference group medical plan $171,585 a year, the pension board report says.
The prescription drug proposal joins 17 other legislative proposals and eight constitutional amendments on the business agenda of the four-day meeting.
The 2005 meeting is to be historic. The Southwest Texas Conference and Rio Grande Conference are to have a joint awards banquet June 3 and a joint ordination service June 4. Both combined sessions are firsts for the two conferences that share a bishop.
Within The United Methodist Church an “annual conference” refers to both a geographic region and a yearly gathering of clergy and laity representatives from all congregations in that region.
The Southwest Texas Annual Conference covers all or part of 78 counties. The area stretches from McCamey on the west to Columbus on the east and from Robert Lee on the north to the Rio Grande on the south.
An annual conference is the basic unit of denominational governance. The conference functions within the church much like a state legislative session within the U.S. federal system. The conference:
> Ordains deacons and elders and commissions other ministry candidates.
> Provides pastors to congregations.
> Receives and acts on reports from conference agencies.
> Initiates regional programs to make disciples of Jesus Christ through local congregations.
> Approves a budget for regional and worldwide ministries and establishes apportionments to each congregation to fund that spending plan.
The voting body is composed of 678 clergy members ordained or licensed by the conference and 678 lay members elected by local charge conferences or filling certain leadership posts. The number of voting laity members is to equal the number of voting clergy members.
Voting participants in the conference are officially “members,” not “delegates.”