Big update planned for General Conference tech

Key points:

• A key computer system in General Conference operations is becoming obsolete.
• The board of The United Methodist Church’s finance agency awarded a $1.5 million grant to upgrade the legislative tracking system.
• In other actions, the board also approved a new legal fund, made changes to United Methodist employee health benefits and received an update on giving so far this year.

For nearly 40 years, the same software has functioned as General Conference’s backbone — connecting the whole legislative process from submission to passage to inclusion in The United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline.

But the Conference and Legislation Management System, called CALMS for short, is now starting to show its age. The United Methodist Church first started using the legislative tracking system in 1988 — back when clouds were solely in the sky, not in computing.

The board of the denomination’s finance agency unanimously supported a $1.5 million grant requested by General Conference organizers to bring CALMS into the 21^st century. The approval of the money, from the denomination’s General Administration Contingency Fund, was among the actions taken by the General Council on Finance and Administration board at its online meeting Aug. 15.

With the grant, the Commission on the General Conference can now select a vendor to modernize the technology by adding cloud-based support, eliminating redundancies and allowing greater automation of tasks.

“The enhancements to the system will create greater efficiencies in our process,” the Rev. Aleze M. Fulbright, General Conference secretary, told United Methodist News after the meeting. “It will provide more accurate information to the delegates.”

While even veteran General Conference delegates may not know much about CALMS, she said, many United Methodists know well the work that depends on it.

CALMS helps produce the Advance Daily Christian Advocate that contains proposed legislation and the Daily Christian Advocate that contains General Conference proceedings. CALMS also is key to publishing the denomination’s Book of Discipline and Book of Resolutions, both of which contain what the international legislative assembly passes.

Fulbright, who like most other General Conference organizers is new in her role, said upgrading CALMS has taken on new urgency because only two people have the expertise to work with the current system, and its limitations are presenting more challenges.

The Rev. Sheila B. Ahler, chair of the finance board’s General Agency and Episcopal Matters Committee that deals with budgetary matters, said her committee shares that sense of urgency. The upgrade needs to happen well before the next General Conference begins in May 2028, she told the board.  

“The work needs to start now,” Ahler said. “The system needs to be up and running before the end of 2026. … So, this is not a decision that can be delayed if we are going to actually have this running by the time of the next General Conference.”

The commission plans to use the $1.5 million grant over the next five years to build up the new CALMS system and ensure it fully serves United Methodist needs. The company chosen for the update also must provide dedicated support for the new system.

Even before the board approved the grant request, Ahler said her committee plans at a future meeting to revisit policies related to the General Administration Contingency Fund. The General Conference-approved denominational budget sets aside the contingency fund for unforeseen or emergency administrative needs between sessions.

Before the grant request, the fund had a balance of about $3.6 million. The grant for the CALMS upgrade reduces that balance to about $2.1 million — below the $2.2 million minimum the finance agency’s guidelines have long sought to maintain. The agency’s board has the authority to adjust those guidelines.

In the meantime, the board also backed a separate $131,000 grant from the contingency fund to support quadrennial training in the Philippines Central Conference on Oct. 12-15. The training, organized by GCFA, will be similar to what the finance agency recently offered at a gathering of African United Methodist leaders.

Throughout the board’s online meeting, board members praised July’s quadrennial training at Africa University, the pan-Africa United Methodist university in Mutare, Zimbabwe.

In other actions:

• The board established a Central Conference Litigation Fund to support the denomination in legal disputes in Africa, Europe and the Philippines. The fund starts with $100,000 from the finance agency’s unrestricted net assets, which are separate from the contingency fund. At present, The United Methodist Church is involved in court cases over church property in Liberia, Nigeria and the Philippines. The board’s Committee on Legal Responsibilities and Corporate Governance previously approved litigation-assistance grants to Liberia this month and Nigeria last year.
• The board approved a 6.5% increase in the medical premiums of the health benefits offered to United Methodist bishops and agency employees. The increase starts in 2026. GCFA staff acknowledged the price hike would be a challenge but noted the renewal rate was the lowest and sole single-digit increase in their broker’s portfolio.
• The board learned that as of the end of July, U.S. conferences have paid 35.3% of requested apportionments — shares of church giving that support denomination-wide ministries. That compares to 31.4% from U.S. conferences at the same time last year. The apportionment collection rate from central conferences is 26.6% as of the end of July, compared to 20.5% last year.

The denomination is asking for significantly lower apportionments starting this year under the 2025-28 budget General Conference approved in 2024.

But at this rate, General Council on Finance and Administration staff currently project an apportionment collection rate from the U.S. of around 80% to 84%. That is well below the 90% collection rate GCFA is aiming for this year. The U.S. supplies the bulk of funding for denomination-wide ministries.

The Rev. Stephanie York Arnold, the top executive of the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women, offered the board meeting’s opening devotion. She urged those in attendance to be fully present, to pay attention, to speak the truth without judgment and to be open to different outcomes than they might expect.

“I’m so impressed and inspired by the teams that I have gotten to now sit in and watch and learn from,” said York Arnold, who started in her role about six months ago. “But I am struck by the magnitude of the work that is before us, and how very desperately we have got to come up with new ways to do things for the good of our mission.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 of newsdesk@umcom.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.