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PASTOR'S REPORT, July 2, 1979
Page 8
Mr. Browne concluded by asking the Commission to reopen the investigation
of Judge Pacht and attorney Chodos in order to give Church attorneys a
chance to present to the Commission their concerns about Pacht's conduct
in the case. The Church should have been given this chance to be heard
but had not been even contacted in the so-called "thorough investigation''!
COST OF LIVING DATA
One of the most difficult areas to administer for those of us in Ministerial
Services has been the Area Wage Adjustment program. The concept of area
wage adjustment is fairly simple--to compensate those who have been required
to move into areas where the living costs are higher than those upon which
their salaries were based. Salaries have been administered from Pasadena,
and the pay scales set based on salaries in the Los Angeles area. There
fore, we have adjusted upward the salaries of those living in areas where
the cost of living exceeded that of the Los Angeles area.
Translating the area wage adjustment concept into an equitable program has
been difficult because of a lack of suitable information.
Individual per
ception--the individual concerned making judgments based on his own feelings
about his area--hasn't been shown to be a reliable guide. This is the main
weakness, among others, that led to the failure of the Third Tithe Housing
Subsidy system.
In that system, serious inequities developed.
Reports in newspapers and magazines have proven to be misleading and unusable
for our purposes. They have data on a very limited number of cities and
often their data isn't of a suitable nature. Also, we learned in discussions
with the head of the Los Angeles office of the Department of Labor that their
statistics aren't applicable to our needs.
We have, for several years, used information from the American Chamber of
Commerce Research Associates. We feel their data is accurate, sufficiently
broad in coverage, and applicable to the Area Wage Adjustment program.
In
additio� we recently have had a cost of living report prepared specifically
for the Church by the Runzheimer and Company consulting firm. This seems,
thus far, to be the best information available to us. It is only from this
kind of �actual basis that we can equitably administer the Area Wage Adjust
ment program.
Over the past six years as the cost of living has gone up all across the
nation, it has gone up even faster in the Pasadena/Los Angeles area. The
result has been that fewer and fewer areas have been eligible for area wage
adjustment; and now according to the latest, most accurate information
available to us, no area in the United States is eligible.
According to a May 1979 report produced for us by Runzheimer, the Pasadena
a�ea �as higher living costs than any of the other areas studied which in
cluded in descending order: Pasadena, Honolulu, San Francisco/Oakland,
Anchorage, Chicago, Washington,
o.c. ,
New York City/Northeast New Jersey,
Boston, and Seattle.
Having talkea to a number of men in some of the traditional high-cost areas,
I know that it's hard to perceive of the shift in living costs that has been
happening across the country. However, those of us living in the Los Angeles
basi� know there has been a change.