Editor’s Note: In October 2025, 11 churches in the Presbytery of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) met with representatives of the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) to express their concerns about financial reporting. In response, the OGA agreed to make significant changes in financial reporting. In this interview, Brad Tedrow provides an update on that agreement. Tedrow serves as a Ruling Elder at Oakville Presbyterian Church in Shedd, Ore., and has 32 years of professional experience as a CFO, accountant, and financial manager for non-profit organizations.
Plumb Line: In the fall of 2025, the Office of the General Assembly agreed to make changes in its financial reporting and budgeting process to provide for greater transparency. Has the OGA complied with the terms of that agreement?
Tedrow: I am sorry to report that I am not pleased with the way the OGA and the NLT are handling the financial reporting for the denomination, nor from what I am being told, the financial management. A brief overall opinion from my perspective is that the current reporting is more or less meaningless to members of the GA or the denomination. The OGA and NLT could, in my opinion, do a better job of exercising commitment to internal control and effective communication to the General Assembly when it comes to financial reporting and budgeting.
Plumb Line: In what ways has the OGA complied with the agreement?
Tedrow: The OGA has committed to providing a link to the denomination’s financial reporting on a quarterly basis, which is to be the equivalent of what is received by the NLT. To share the report more widely a link to the quarterly financial report is included in the quarterly email to the denomination from the Stated Clerk. The OGA did not share the first quarterly financial report with the denomination for the period ending September 30, 2025, but has subsequently provided reports for the two following quarters ending December 30 and March 31, 2026. In addition, when asked, variances from the approved budget were explained.
It appears, however, that once a new quarterly report is posted the older reports are removed from the site. This makes it difficult to track financial changes/trends going forward.
Plumb Line: In what ways has the OGA failed to comply with the agreement?
Tedrow: Some of the financial information we requested has yet to be provided, including the presentation of three separate financial statements for the three corporations within the EPC: General Assembly (GA), World Outreach (WO), and Benefit Resources, Inc. (BRI). In prior years these corporations were included together in audited combined financial statements making it difficult to understand the financial position of the Office of General Assembly as well as the other two components making up the consolidated statements. In a recent communication from Pat Coelho, Chief Financial Officer for the denomination, he is planning on presenting separate financial statements at the 2026 General Assembly.
The OGA also agreed to provide a budget narrative which would outline sources of revenue as well as explanations of the expenses supporting the 2026-27 General Assembly budget. The narrative would also address changes in both revenue and expense categories between fiscal years. The narrative was also to include metrics tying together spending with goal-oriented outcomes.
The PNW group of commissioners who identified the lack of a budget narrative as a material weakness in our original letter to the OGA and NLT in February of 2025 offered to review the budget narrative prior to the upcoming GA. Pat indicated while the NLT planned to provide reports regarding the Gospel Priorities in the budget presentation and that the NLT was open to our suggestions, the presentation would be handled by the NLT in coordination with the Finance Team. We reiterated our original requests from our February 2025 correspondence to Pat.
Finally, the NLT agreed to address questions related to how unrestricted reserves are spent and how those expenditures are being reported. The NLT agreed to discuss potential guidelines for such spending and reporting, and to offer possible Acts of the Assembly to the 46th GA to establish a threshold and standard for such reporting. According to Pat, the NLT was planning to take up this question in their April meeting. We have asked for an update on the results of that discussion, but further information has not been provided.
Plumb Line: Based on the financial information provided by the OGA, it appears that significant changes are being made in the budget that were not included in the annual budget approved by General Assembly.
Tedrow: Yes, that seems to be true. It would appear from the answers provided that changes are made throughout the year by the NLT, presumably with a high degree of input from the OGA. These changes are not openly reported or discussed, but rather are being made by a relatively small number of individuals without updates to the approved budget.
In a recent communication with Pat regarding the December 31 financial reports, the OGA, WO, and BRI have all added staff positions with NLT approval since the 2025-26 budget was approved by the General Assembly last June. In addition, according to Pat, investments are also being made in software to improve efficiencies, and he explains some of these expenses were not anticipated prior to the budget preparation.
Personally, I find it interesting that the OGA and NLT added staff and software expenses after the budget had already been approved by the General Assembly. I found it even more interesting that staff could be added with no noted increase in the budget document, nor a mention of this in the published quarterly notes as of the December 31 quarterly report. How is it that the NLT can approve these changes without updates to the approved budget document? How does the larger General Assembly down to the local church understand what these new approved expenditures are for and for how much? According to the Rules for Assembly under section X.10-1,A,4:
“The National Leadership Team is not a court of the denomination, nor a commission of the General Assembly, but a committee of the denomination, with authority derived from the Book of Order. The NLT is, therefore, responsible to the General Assembly and carries out its work under the authority of the General Assembly by proactively making recommendations to the General Assembly and exercising authority to carry out those recommendations as approved by the General Assembly” (from citation X,10.1,A,1,c).
In the Rules of Assembly which covers NLT budget development, there is no authority extended to the committee other than to “receive projections from all committees and submit to General Assembly a proposed budget.” There are no provisions for the committee to act on its own to modify the budget after approval or make funding allocation decisions. Despite arguments voiced to the contrary, it would appear the NLT is exceeding its decision-making authority.
Plumb Line: You have expressed concern that a small group of people — the National Leadership Team and the OGA — are making these budgetary changes without having the proper authority to do so. Can you elaborate?
Tedrow: There appears be a breakdown in the control process. The NLT, with the input from the OGA, appears to be making budget decisions without regard for GA approval whenever they deem appropriate. If this is the case, what is the point of GA going through the process of approving a budget document when the NLT and OGA can simply make changes throughout the fiscal year? Furthermore, the NLT and the OGA appear to have made similar decisions regarding the allocation of unrestricted resources without the approval of the GA.
When internal control processes are not adhered to by top management bodies of the EPC, what is to prevent them from holding back controversial expenditure authorizations or making allocation decisions until after the budget is approved by the GA? This would appear to be a convenient way to bypass the GA entirely on matters considered to be controversial. Currently, it appears the denomination has potential exposure to this type of manipulation unless better internal control processes are adhered to. These risks are further amplified by the lack of detailed budget narratives which explain the expenditures being made, as well as by incomplete reporting (i.e., no updates to approved budgets within published financial reports, and no formal process to amend and approve a budget modification by the General Assembly).
To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of manipulation. I am, however, saying that the lack of transparency and adherence to the denominations own internal control processes is of concern.
Plumb Line: In your meeting with the OGA, your group expressed concern about more than $1 million in unrestricted reserves that were used to fund Gospel Priorities without the approval of GA. What is the current status of unrestricted reserves?
Tedrow: Yes, this was indeed one of our major concerns. It appears from correspondence with Pat that when unrestricted reserves have been allocated, the associated expenses and any revenue are not updated in the GA-approved budget report. Rather, the expense is reported on the fund balance report. The fund balance report shows the beginning balance of individual designated and restricted funds at the beginning of the fiscal year, the net change (revenue less expenses), and the ending balance as of the report date. This report, therefore, provides no information regarding how the unrestricted reserves were used over the course of the fiscal year. It appears we have unrestricted reserves being allocated, spent, and reported at a very high summary level bypassing any GA oversight and approval.
Actual unrestricted cash reserves, which is the total amount of cash available less board-designated cash and donor-restricted cash in December 2024 was reported in a negative cash position of $215,611. This rebounded to an unrestricted cash reserve of $178,155 as of December 2025. When asked about the volatility of the cash reserves, Pat indicated stock market performance can be volatile and cause big swings in the unrestricted reserves, contributions may lag, expenditures above the GA-approved budget may contribute, and cash may be tied up in receivables. As of March 2026, the unrestricted cash reserves have swung to a negative $10,270. It appears over the period of a single quarter the denomination experienced a swing in unrestricted cash reserves of slightly over $188,000 — or about 5 percent of the approved budget.
This raises the question of how, when unrestricted cash is negative, does the denomination cover those deficits? It also raises the question of why unrestricted cash is so volatile in terms of quarterly swings which appears to be influenced, in part, by moves in the market and investments made on the part of the denomination.
Plumb Line: Would you say that EPC financial reporting has become more transparent or not?
Tedrow: At this point I would say no, not really. While it is now possible to have access to the quarterly reports which are provided to the NLT, it is not anything which was not already being published and available. It was simply being shared with a small number of people as opposed to other interested parties across the denomination. It will be beneficial to see the financial statements for the EPC/OGA as a stand-alone corporation. Again, however, this was information that was being prepared already but not being shared with the rest of the denomination.
There have been no visible improvements in a transparent budget process. We have hopes that the budget narrative will be substantial and informative as to both the planned revenues and expenditures for the upcoming 2026-27 fiscal year. We are hopeful that the NLT in its deliberations will look at how the internal control processes can be adhered to by proactively making recommendations to the General Assembly regarding budget modifications and the allocation of funding throughout the year. We will certainly be interested in the NLT’s deliberations over how unrestricted reserves are allocated, spent, and reported.
Plumb Line: One of your concerns is that there is little reporting of staff positions and salaries, including the hiring of additional staff. Is that still an issue?
Tedrow: Yes, this is still a concern. The OGA continues to drag its feet with regards to a full reporting of staff positions and the related compensation in the form of salary and benefits.
As I mentioned earlier, additional staff has been added to the OGA and approved by the NLT this fiscal year after the budget was approved in June 2025 by the GA. No specific information has been presented as to how many staff were added, what their roles are, and how much additional resources were required to bring on those positions. Again, this action ignores the guardrails in place through the Rules of Assembly for proactive recommendations coming from the NLT to the GA for final approval
Given that salaries and benefits now make up roughly 59 percent of the approved 2025-26 budget and is apparently growing at an undetermined rate, it appears to be of growing importance to shed some transparency on the individual staff positions within the OGA. As part of the budget proposal to the General Assembly, the budget request should include each individual position (both full-time and part-time) with supporting salary and benefit amounts for each position. This was part of our original request in our February 2025 letter to the OGA and NLT. It is apparent that no action is being taken to shed further transparency on the issue of personnel expenses or the NLT acting beyond their authority as spelled out in the Rules of Assembly.
Plumb Line: Given all the information provided by the OGA, have you been able to determine the financial health of the EPC? Are you confident that the EPC will have sufficient funding and reserves to remain fiscally strong and solvent in the future?
Tedrow: At this point, from the information provided by auditors and others I see no reason to believe the EPC would not be able to continue on as a solvent entity. With that said there are indicators which give me pause regarding the GA financial management. Those include:
- Wide fluctuations in the operating cash reserves: According to OGA published reports, the operating cash reserve ratio was 1.6 months in December 2024 and 1.7 months in March 2025. Reserves rebounded to 2.9 months in December 2025 but dropped again to 2.3 months in March 2025. According to the OGA, 3 months operating cash is considered sound and 6 months strong. Over the past year plus, the denomination has been operating under less than a sound operating cash basis according to the OGA.
- Cash on hand: As of the March 31, 2026, report, cash on hand is now trailing both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years. Cash appears to have been declining throughout the present fiscal year with unrestricted cash currently (as of March 31) in a deficit position.
- Required Budget Escrow: According to the OGA, the denomination requires a budget escrow account in accordance with the policy of maintaining a balance equal to 20 percent of our annual operating expense budget. This account is a Cash Restricted Board Designated fund. It appears that this account may be underfunded over the course of any given fiscal year given the OGA’s treatment of the annual budget. The fact that the OGA does not go through a budget amendment process when the NLT and OGA decide to add staff, materials, and services, etc., to the budget results in an understatement of both the actual budget and the amount to be reserved in the budget escrow account. The potential problem of understated escrow becomes even more pronounced when unrestricted reserves are allocated to various gospel priorities but not included in the budget document. Rather, these allocations are run through the fund balance report and bypass budget reporting completely. To get an idea of the scale of the potential issue, assume a $1,000,000 dollar balance of unrestricted resources is allocated among three gospel priorities, $200,000 of that allocation should be held back as Required Budget Escrow if it were treated as a change in the annual budget. That does not, however, appear to happen.
Whether this practice of understating the annual budget and therefore the budget escrow account is intentional or not, it would appear to be out of compliance with the OGA’s internal control standard. It also potentially reduces the denomination’s ability to weather a financial crisis.
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