March 3, 1999
No change in Cooperative
Program percentages
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___NASHVILLE, Tenn.--A Southern Baptist Convention budget that has been marked "transitional" for two years will not be changed, the SBC Executive Committee determined Feb. 23.
___The same percentage splits that have divided Cooperative Program gifts among various SBC agencies and institutions in the two-year transitional period after denominational restructuring will be retained.
___Restructuring was promoted, in part, as a way to get more Cooperative Program money to "front-line missions." However, the major beneficiaries of funding increases since restructuring have been SBC seminaries, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the Executive Committee itself.
___The International Mission Board, hailed as the flagship missions enterprise of Southern Baptists, will continue to receive the same percentage (50 percent) of Cooperative Program money it got before restructuring.
___Like most other SBC agencies, the IMB actually receives a greater dollar amount each year as total giving increases, but its slice of the pie has not budged.
___Executive Committee leaders do note, however, that the IMB should get a different kind of increase in next year's SBC budget because by the end of the year it should be getting an authentic 50 percent of all Cooperative Program gifts. In the past, gifts over budget were not divided on the same percentage basis due to half of any overflow being diverted into a denominationwide capital needs budget. That capital needs budget will be completed and eliminated sometime during the 1999-2000 fiscal year.
___The SBC's other direct missions agency, the North American Mission Board, was created in the restructuring plan by merging three agencies, the Home Mission Board, Brother-hood Commission and Radio & Television Commission. In the transitional SBC budgets since restructuring--and now in the planned budgets for the next two years--NAMB has received 22.79 percent of all Cooperative Program gifts, less than the combined 24.15 percent given to its predecessors.
___Meanwhile, the total portion of SBC funds given to the seminaries has grown from 20.4 percent before restructuring to 21.64 percent now. Some seminaries have benefited from this increase more than others, due to the formula by which the seminary line item is divided based on a rolling average of enrollments. The biggest gainer has been Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. The biggest loser has been Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
___The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission now receives 1.49 percent of the SBC budget, up from 0.99 percent before restructuring.
___The $159.58 million budget will be considered by messengers to the SBC annual meeting in June.
___Projected allocations are: IMB (50 percent), $79.79 million; NAMB (22.79 percent), $36.37 million; the six seminaries (21.64 percent), $34.53 million; Ethics & Religious Liberty Commis-sion (1.49 percent), $2.38 million; Annuity Board (0.76 percent), $1.2 million; and the Execuive Committee's SBC Operating Budget (3.32 percent), $5.3 million.Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!