To our Concordia Plans Community:

Yesterday morning an article about church retirement plans appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. The article painted a grim picture with respect to the state of church plans and their commitments to serving their members.

To be clear, the cases discussed in the article are real tragedies. And tragedies that could have been avoided. Tragedies that were devastating to so many people. The damage is real. The hurt is real.

The article, however, failed to tell the full story regarding the church plan community. There are two important parts to the story that were missing. The first part is the difference between the entities in the story and entities like the Concordia Plans. And the second is the story of how longstanding Plans such as your Concordia Plans, are professionally managed and overseen.

The cases presented in the article are largely single-employer retirement plans with varying degrees of ties to a larger church body.

The Concordia Retirement Plan and the Concordia Retirement Savings Plan are multiple employer church plans with well-defined ties to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Why is this important? Because single-employer church plans have some of the same challenges that secular plans have – their boards are managing separate businesses. Managing the benefit programs is a minor part of their responsibilities, which thus leads to a perceived need for governmental oversight.

The Board of Directors of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod appoints the fifteen members of the Board of Directors of Concordia Plan Services (CPS). These Board members also serve as trustees for all the Concordia Plan trusts. The Board of Trustees is solely focused on their fiduciary responsibilities to Plan members.

Additionally, the LCMS Chief Financial Officer serves as the representative of the LCMS Board, and the LCMS President has appointed his representative—a District President—to the CPS Board. Both individuals are actively engaged in all matters coming before the CPS Board.

The Board and Staff of CPS contain experts in retirement plans, health plans, investments, finance, actuarial science, and so on. We are not tasked with running a hospital or other such business. We have been given the responsibility to manage, on behalf of the church, the Concordia Plans.

In addition, CPS works with outside consultants and advisors to build upon our internal expertise.

Investment performance and financial results are reviewed quarterly. The Plans are audited annually. Every year, outside actuaries perform an actuarial valuation of the Concordia Retirement Plan, comparing the assets to the liabilities. The process includes complex stochastic modeling that goes out 20 years and even beyond.

One year ago, CPS announced a series of rate increases to the Concordia Retirement Plan.

This rate increase is not evidence of a problem, such as those presented by The Wall Street Journal. It is evidence of the due diligence the CPS Board and Staff undertake to prevent such stories from ever occurring.

Our structure, and our governance model, allow us to focus on managing the Concordia Plans to long-term financial viability and sustainability.

It is our commitment, and our resolve, to continue to manage the Concordia Plans with professionals and in a proactive, responsible manner.

It is also our honor and privilege to be members of the Church Alliance. This is a collection of thirty-four multiple employer denominational benefit programs such as ours. I serve as chair of the Church Alliance. The Church Alliance works on your behalf to tell the story of the good things being done by denominational benefit programs.

As Congress and other policymakers in Washington, D.C., address the very real issues coming out of some single-employer plans, we want to make sure they understand the professional management and governance of denominational benefit programs.

The Board and Staff of CPS are committed to our mission of serving ministries and caring for workers so that the Word of God continues to spread!

Thank you for your partnership in ministry!

In His Service,

James F. Sanft, FSA, MAAA
Chief Executive Officer