Catholic Group Faces Staff Cuts

Catholic Relief Services is offering buyouts to employees and finding other ways to cut administrative expenses because of a decline in donations and losses in investments.

The loss in revenue has forced the charity to suspend or cut charitable programs, reduce its advertising, travel, and training budgets, and eliminate about 50 of 330 staff positions in its Baltimore headquarters, said David F. Piraino, the charity’s director of human resources.

The group narrowly avoided layoffs because enough employees, including those scheduled to retire soon, accepted the group’s voluntary buyout packages, which include severance payments of a week’s pay for each year a person had been employed by the organization, Mr. Piraino said. The charity may have to trim its staff size further if fund-raising results do not improve, he added.

From January to April, the organization, which provides relief and development services in 80 countries, raised $18.1-million, a $342,000 decline compared with the same period last year, said Joe Carney, a spokesman for the group. The number of donations was down about 14 percent between January and April compared with the same period last year, he added.

Catholic Relief Services expects to raise about $9-million less than it had projected for its 2003 fiscal year, which started in October, Mr. Carney said. He blamed the fund-raising drop on the downturn in the U.S. economy.

Reversing a previous decision, the relief group decided to accept U.S. government grants for aid work in Iraq, though Mr. Carney said this choice was not related to the fund-raising difficulties. Before the war, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which expressed strong opposition to the United States-led attack on Iraq, ordered Catholic Relief Services not to accept government grants for its work in that region.