More information on Braxton and Coffin's fiscal packages

A member of the senior lay leadership at Riverside during Bill Coffin’s tenure corrected my assertion on this page that Bill’s salary was $30,000. In fact, Rev. Coffin’s salary was $60,000 when he left Riverside, an amount was known to the senior lay leadership on a confidential basis. During Coffin’s public divorce trial, his salary became public knowledge.

Based on the Consumer Price Index at http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm,
$60,000 in 1987 has the same buying power as $112,952 in 2009. Thus, the equivalent present-day salary for Dr. Braxton would be $112,952, and not the $250,000 the church is paying him. In short, Dr. Braxton is being paid a base salary approximately double Dr. Coffin’s.

As regards Dr. Coffin’s housing, Riverside paid the rent for his two-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive above Tiemann Place, which had a view of the Hudson River. Having myself lived in that neighborhood from 1978 until 2007, I can assert with confidence that in the late 1980’s Morningside Heights was nothing like the luxury neighborhood in which Dr. Braxton’s housing is found on the present-day Upper West Side.

I do not know the market value of the apartment Dr. Coffin lived in. However, having myself lived about a mile south of his apartment in a two-bedroom rental apartment on Riverside Drive with views of the Hudson, based on my own rental costs, the rental cost of Dr. Coffin’s home was likely less than $1,500 per month in that era. In other words, Riverside was likely paying something in the range of $18,000 per year for Dr. Coffin’s housing. Today, Riverside funds Dr. Braxton’s luxury apartment rental costing nearly $18,000 per month; the same amount the church spent annually for Dr. Coffin’s housing. In other words, Dr. Braxton’s housing subsidy is nearly twelve times that paid for Dr. Coffin.

Dr. Coffin did not feel he needed an apartment with space to entertain church guests, since Riverside Church has plenty of space for entertaining visiting guests.
Riverside also did not fund any domestic help, gym membership, or private schooling for Dr. Coffin or his family.

Unlike Dr. Braxton, who rationalizes his luxury financial package as “combat pay” needed to “make him whole,” Dr. Coffin felt he was properly remunerated with a small fraction of Dr. Braxton’s total package, even after the respective numbers are adjusted for inflation. Coffin donated any “gifts” and wedding service “gratuities” he was given to a charity backed by Riverside. Coffin got very upset when another clergyperson on the staff received an inheritance from a member and kept it. Coffin felt that it led to conflicts of interest when staff got close with members of wealth.

Unlike Dr. Braxton, Bill Coffin was a national superstar who brought in big crowds. Both membership and donations soared under his leadership. He donated freely of his time and energy for myriad national and international social justice causes, including voting rights, nuclear disarmament, support for the end of South African apartheid, and negotiating for the release of American hostages held in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution. Despite his myriad activities, Coffin never slighted his pastoral functions. Under Dr. Braxton’s leadership, both attendance and donations have both plummeted. Dr. Braxton’ sole social justice effort is lobbying for white reparations for slavery.