Irish, what about if the music director has a paid choir and the pastor, for example, deems it unnecessary to have this choir sing for, let's say, Ash Wednesday services....i.e. he wants only the organist and cantor. Would the choir still get paid for not even needing to come??

My paid members are paid when they're here and not paid when they're not here. They're given a schedule of dates at the beginning of the year and we try to stick by it.

If they're going to be absent, they give me notice. If they get sick and can't fake not being sick, they send me a text message by 5:30am on Sunday. If they're sick often, they don't last long.

If I decide randomly I don't want them to be there one weekend, I tell them that. I try to give them at least one month's notice so they can get other gigs. If I'm going on vacation, I usually just hire the men of the choir (what a sexist jerk that matthewj is) and I tell them that and they abide by it.

Throughout the year there are a dozen or more dates that get "added" - they're not required to be present at these events (but if they want to stay on my good side, they make every attempt to be there), but if they are they get paid for it.

They keep their own time-sheet with the list of dates they have sung. They don't dare make errors on their time sheets, because they know what happens if I have to think too much or go searching through TV Mass archives to find out if they were there.

The whole relationship is based on mutual respect and their extreme desires to keep me from being unhappy - which would cause me to make everyone, everywhere unhappy also.

Good grief..the answers received thus far show a level of flippancy that will not wash in tax circles and administrative circles.

1) Are they paid as a salary or contract worker....that determines tax status.
2) Contract states dates of presence...all Sundays,etc.
3) policy on absence....no show, no pay....etc.
4) Extra dates such as Holy Week, Christmas,etc.
5) Securing substitute in absence...some places allow this. I never did

Expectations for singer including late policy, decorum (correct clothing,etc) and declaration of release of position.

Diocesan governance will enter into contract versus salary system. Time sheets are a variable...I maintained them by having singers notate on the board their presence.

Written memos of agreement are very good ideas. Also, the last question: who can fire and hire. Can Pastor remove without consent of MD or can MD fire without consent of Pastor. A recent event around here brings that into mind.

As my father would say: stop being a musician and start being an administrator. Music has to be managed or there will be no music.

Kevin,

I don't think Matthew was being flippant. He doesn't work (by the sound of it) on a strictly contractual basis -- the contract is an oral one, and is subject to the "you don't want to upset me" principle.

And that is the point that people need to know....there are administrative aspects to this business of managing musicians and singers.

The OP needed to know this. The kind of oral agreements and side handshakes are what got us into trouble in many ways.

Many a MD has gotten into trouble because of a lack of administrative understanding. And then there's the clergy...my own pastor when I was growing up managed to "spend" $500,000 of the parish's money on a house in Florida because no one was watching over him. He got caught 10 years later.

Thankfully, those days are gone, but the administration aspects still need to be noted.

Off my soapbox.

How large a church do you need to be able to afford paid singers & organists? Mine has around 1000 families and all but the DOM are volunteers

I've had paid singers at two parishes where I was DM. They had approx. 500 and 1,100 families, respectively.

When I was a paid singer, it was at a parish with approx. 1,300 families.

I think that size, and, even to an extent, wealth, is not always a determining factor. Rather, it is a matter of what the money available will be spent on. Some parishes will spend it on liturgy and music, whilst (most) others will spend it on carpeting or some 'pet project'- anything but music. Except in the most genuinely impecunious situations a parish can generally provide, or raise, the money for whatever it wishes. It's priorities, not number of families and wealth. Plus, some 'small' parishes are blessed with deep pocketed parishioners, so, as always, it's priorities and values. And, there is no dearth of parishes that can easily raise two or three or more million dollars at the drop of a hat... and the thing that they would never do it for would be an organ.

So true, MJO. The money is there for what the pastor deems to be truly important. He can reallocate funds at a whim in most cases. He simply chooses not to spend those funds on music or musicians.

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