For many, retirement is a time of excitement and anxiety. That’s something the Rev. Dr. Luz Maldonado understands well.
“I know for sure, when I retire, everything is going to change, financially especially,” she said.
Maldonado has been a pastor for 36 years — a journey that began in Puerto Rico, where she served for 10 years. Her most recent appointment, a newer church called Nuevo Pacto United Methodist Church in Sebring, has allowed her to serve the same Highlands County faith community for the past 20 years.
“I started when I was 25 years old,” Maldonado said. “It’s been a long road, and I’m kind of happy it’s going to be a time when I am expecting to have time to travel and enjoy a little bit of life, because as a pastor, it’s a double or triple full-time job.”
Even so, she knows she will miss what she loves doing most — preaching and leading Bible studies. While she hopes to stay active as a guest preacher, she knows it will be a big change.
“I’m going to miss that part,” she said. “I know that for sure.”
To prepare for her future financial challenges, Maldonado and her husband, Juan, attended the foundation’s Presente & Futuro seminar for the first time in 2019. They decided to return for the virtual edition held late last year.
The annual seminar features foundation staff and other experts sharing information and resources on a variety of retirement-related topics — financial planning, pension and benefits, taxes, Social Security, estate planning. The 2020 session included on-demand videos by presenters that were available for viewing and downloading Nov. 14, followed by a live Q&A Zoom session Jan. 9.
The goal of the seminar, presented mostly in Spanish, is to help Hispanic clergy of all ages make sound financial decisions now and in the future.
While Juan is already retired from a military career, Maldonado is about seven years from retirement. She said the sessions have been an invaluable resource as they continue planning.
“And now with this Presente & Futuro information, I think I am going to be on the right track, making the right decisions, and looking forward to plan ahead everything I need for my retirement,” she said.
An accessible resource
The foundation’s annual R-10 & Counting Seminar, held for the 14th year last year, offers similar information and was also virtual. The difference between it and Presente & Futuro lies in language and culture.
While Hispanic clergy in Florida often speak both English and Spanish, many prefer to receive term-laden material, like financial information, in Spanish. That makes it easier to understand.
To accommodate that preference, the seminar’s videos included a mix of Spanish- and English-speaking presenters, with Spanish subtitling on the English presentations.
And by being virtual, clergy beyond Florida were able to participate.
The Rev. Aixa Maldonado-Marti is a pastor and district superintendent serving The Methodist Church of Puerto Rico. She is also the church’s representative with Wespath Benefits and Investments, the pension agency for Methodist clergy.
She registered for the seminar and accessed the materials and Zoom session from Puerto Rico. While bilingual, she agrees it was helpful to have the resources in Spanish.
“I speak in English, but sometimes the technical names of something I cannot translate in my mind,” she said.
“We go to seminary, we get taught in a master’s in divinity, but we have to try to get this information. It’s a must.” — Rev. Aixa Maldonado-Marti, Methodist Church of Puerto Rico
But language isn’t the only unique feature of the seminar. The Rev. Sandra Santiago, the foundation’s regional stewardship consultant, says the session also considers cultural differences.
While Anglo-American clergy more readily strategize and plan for a rainy day, Santiago said, many Hispanics don’t feel the same urgency.
“But we, the Hispanic, the Latino peoples, we live day by day, and we don’t tend to plan financially for the future,” she said.
Some clergy go so far as to lean on their faith as a reason to avoid doing what financial planners recommend, she says, such as becoming familiar with pension plans and strategizing about the best time to claim Social Security benefits.
“I think in the church it’s like, ‘OK, God will provide, God will provide, and he will provide,’” Santiago said.
It’s a perspective Maldonado-Marti is familiar with. She has seen how friends and family of pastors who have died are left to sort out matters relating to the pastor’s estate and address uncertainty for the surviving spouse.
“We have had pastors who have died, and afterward, it’s a huge mess,” Maldonado-Marti said. “‘Who does this belong to? How can we help the widow?’ It’s a big mess. That was very eye-opening.”
No time to wait
Although she’s knowledgeable about finances and accounting, the seminar helped Maldonado-Marti find new tasks to check off her own list.
Making a will was one. The seminar also reminded her to log into her IRS account online to review her Social Security projections.
Now, she is trying to create a similar event for Puerto Rican Methodist clergy, one that will include information on financial and tax laws unique to living and working in Puerto Rico.
“Here in Puerto Rico, as Sandra said, it’s like talking bad language when you talk about accounting and pension plans and IRS,” Maldonado-Marti said.
But there’s no time to wait, she added, because reaching clergy sooner will give them more time to prepare and avoid unwanted surprises.
“One thing that was said, you have to start planning your retirement 10 years before, not 10 days or 10 months before that,” she said.
The goal of the seminars is to show clergy that financial planning will enable them to have a better life now and in the future. It will also create less uncertainty for loved ones. And Maldonado-Marti says that’s just as important as being in tune with their calling.
“I know there is a spiritual part,” she said. “We go to seminary, we get taught in a master’s in divinity, but we have to try to get this information. It’s a must.”
Asking the big questions
Maldonado attended the session because she wanted to know more about housing options in retirement, taxes and how much money her retirement accounts will provide.
“At that time (in life), buying a property or buying a house is a big commitment,” she said. “And we are not going to have the same resources financially that we have right now. Those are the kind of things that worry us.”
Like many pastors, she has lived in a parsonage most of her career. The challenge now is deciding where they would like to live and how they might purchase a home while staying within their budget.
But Maldonado said she has a better understanding of the unique tax implications for clergy, who must pay self-employment taxes for Social Security and Medicare benefits. It’s something she did not always correctly address in her taxes.
And the seminar prompted her to log in to her pension account to see what type of income her current contributions will allow her to have in retirement. She hopes to realize her dreams of owning a home and traveling to Spain and destinations in Latin America.
While she does have more questions, she said she’s more prepared than when she first started. And she plans to continue attending Presente & Futuro each year, whether virtual or in person.
“Put me on the list for the next one,” she said. “I’m going to be there for all the years until retirement.