The Archdiocese of Chicago provides parental leave – yea! (or not?)

Here’s the article that’s been linked to by Mark Shea and others:  “Archdiocese announces new parental leave policy; Staff will now receive 12 weeks of paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child.”  The basics are exactly as stated in the headline; the policy was initiated by Cupich, and is estimated to cost $1 million per year as 200 employees make use of it.  (These numbers imply a benefit of $5,000 per employee, which seems low for 12 paid weeks, but presumably that’s a calculation of additional cost on top of the existing sick leave-based program.)

So, great, right?  The private sector is voluntarily offering this benefit, there’s no government edict, it’s all good.

Except that the Archdiocese of Chicago is seriously, seriously in the red.  Here’s Crain’s:

The archdiocese said its main services division reported a $4.6 million ongoing operating loss for its fiscal 2015. The division, called the pastoral center, includes administrative functions for the archdiocese and financial support to needy parishes in the city and suburbs.

The archdiocese’s 351 parishes, which span Cook and Lake counties and report their budget separately, recorded a combined $58.8 million loss in 2015, up from a $49.9 million loss in 2014. Parish collections declined slightly in 2015, to $214.4 million, from $215.9 million in 2014.

Not to mention the fact that Cupich has just begun a multi-year parish-closing program.

So is this really the right time to go about enhancing the benefits program because it fulfills a social-justice agenda?

But, on the other hand, the church can’t be in perpetual crisis mode, either.  And staff has to be paid a fair wage; if nothing else, pragmatically speaking, you can’t retain the staff, especially teachers, if the ratio of what they’re paid vs. what they could earn elsewhere, is too, too low.

But on the third hand, you can’t be in the red year after year, either.  (Well, unless you’re Sears, and finance your slow death by selling off your real estate a bit at a time.)

So I don’t know — what do you think?

UPDATE:  This has now been reported in the Chicago Tribune, which clarifies two items:  this applies to every employee working in the parishes and schools as well as directly employed by the Pastoral Center, a total of 7,000 employees, and this is actually 12 weeks of paid time off and an additional 12 weeks of unpaid time.

It also quotes Betsy Bohlen, chief operating officer for the archdiocese, on the finances.

Bohlen said the policy is costly to implement, especially amid the archdiocese’s financial woes stemming from sex abuse settlements, declining school enrollment and capital expenses. But recent cost-cutting measures such as employee buyout packages last year have been aimed at making this personnel policy a reality.

“It is a generous policy that does come with an expense,” Bohlen said. “We’ve been able to cover it because we’ve been working very hard on all kinds of efficiencies and ways to stabilize the bottom line.”

But at the same time, Cupich sought to implement this policy “shortly after arriving” which strikes me as odd, both because I don’t see why he would be focused on doing this in Chicago but not have implemented it in his prior diocese, and because it suggests that this isn’t seen as a reward for successful restructuring (which already seems to be counting chickens before they hatch) but something he wanted without regard to the cost.

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