May 28, 2001

Golden Gate reverses report on Texas funding
___MILL VALLEY, Calif. (ABP)--Last year's vote by the Baptist General Convention of Texas sharply reducing funding for Southern Baptist Convention seminaries is, so far, having less impact at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary than first expected.
___So said President Bill Crews in a report to the seminary's trustees in late April.
___Crews said the move was expected to cost Golden Gate about a half-million dollars a year. But while financial support from the BGCT is down 3 percent during the first half of the current SBC fiscal year, Crews said, Cooperative Program support for the seminary has increased 5 percen.
___Last fall Crews predicted that if the new Texas budget passed, Golden Gate would likely have to resort to staff layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. A Texas Baptist leader at the time dismissed Crews' dire prediction as a politically motivated attempt by SBC leaders to influence the BGCT vote a month later.
___After the vote, Golden Gate trustees cut budgets, eliminated staff positions and denied salary increases to faculty and staff--blaming all the cutbacks on reduced funding from Texas.
___Trustees hired a Texan as the institution's first chief financial officer. Gary Groat, named vice president for business affairs, has been vice president for administration at Criswell College in Dallas since 1993.
___Trustees also elected a Texan as chairman of the board. The new chairman is David George, pastor of Lake Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington.

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