Currently, the circuit overseers are a huge money drain on the org. Last year, they spent USD $213,000,000 paying expenses for missionaries, Bethelites, and circuit overseers. That’s the information right out of their own 2017 yearbook.
The way I’ve seen it, they’ve already cut back on Bethelites by 20 - 30%. They fired almost all the ‘special’ pioneers, which cut their expenses for missionaries substantially. And almost all new missionaries are already on the payroll, since the reorganization of Gilead in 2011.
Very few DO’s actually got fired when they eliminated the DO position; most were simply reassigned as CO’s or invited to Bethel. So these guys and their wives are still on the payroll.
The CO position is the only one of those three personnel expenses that they haven’t cut yet. And I’m sure the number crunchers at Warwick are looking for ways to cut CO’s, either by increasing the size of circuits or by eliminating them altogether.
Eliminating CO’s has been tossed about for decades. Supposedly Knorr wanted to get rid of them back in the 70s. About 8 yrs ago a similar rumor was widely circulated on this board. There’s no question the org would love to get rid of the expense of CO’s, while still reaping the benefits of their supervision and flock beatings. Every body of elders knows that the only reason some tasks ever get accomplished in the KH is because they know the CO will be coming around to inspect the books.
It would not be a shock to me if CO’s get the axe in the next decade, to be replaced by 2 or 3 overworked volunteer ‘circuit elders’ that would do all their work, but for free.
